


Marauder!Crack

by silphenie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hogwarts Era, M/M, Marauders, Not a crack fic despite the title, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, mention of drugs, minor original characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-09-07 02:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silphenie/pseuds/silphenie
Summary: Sirius.It’s the name that overruns his thoughts, the most recurrent one in that interior litany that follows him everywhere he goes. Sirius is the name he hears when his heart begins to change, its beating increasing, driven by the moon. Remus feels him in those instants, the only thing he feels. Sirius mere centimeters away, supporting his weight while he’s still a man. "Only flesh, Remus, it’s only flesh."Sirius is what remains in the border between a man and a wolf. Remus. Remus is the shadow of an older man stuck in a body that will always seem a bit awkward, as if growing too fast without molding into itself. Remus is pain in its virgin state when three nights per month he explodes, he falls apart in a thousand pieces and sometimes, when the initial pain arrives, the first contraction of the moon under the skin, he takes his hand over his heart and closes his eyes, grinds his teeth, painfully moans and murmurs his name. "It’s here, Sirius. I can already feel it."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Marauder!Crack](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/245932) by Irati. 



> Though there's many english to spanish translations, I don't think there's enough of the opposite so I wanted to change that and this is my little grain of salt: the one work I would most want to share with you guys. Specially you, Caroline, because I was not gonna let you experience this story through google translation. 
> 
> It's a story with a peculiar style I've tried to bring into the english version but I'm not quite sure if I've succeeded. There will be some aspects in future chapters, little details, that won't match canon because the story was written very early in the Harry Potter books release timeline, but we'll get to that later. 
> 
> Thanks go to my two betas for their time and patience: [Eugenia](http://earthhorsewoman.tumblr.com/) and [Stephanie](http://rainagainstmywindow.tumblr.com/)
> 
> And, most of all, thanks of course to Irati, the amazing author, for creating this story and letting me run with this project.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it.

**Territorial Instinct**

The scarf has the unmistakable Gryffindor colours. Deep red, like a heart pumping young blood. Yellow stripes, the colour of desert sand on a dying afternoon. As he makes his way toward the Gryffindor tower, the colours overlap and mix over the millennial stone floor. He drags on the cloth with a sluggish pace. His is a clumsiness so subtle that it gives the illusion of sophisticated elegance. He’s exhausted, with his ears bundled up and a red nose from a cold, almost gone now. His face in an Arithmancy book to review the last class. He’s distracted, limping, and dressed in winter clothing when most of the students are still pushing for Autumn. It’s barely cold enough to feel it, but it’s the first day of the waning moon and Remus Lupin has scars on his neck that he wants no one to see.

At the corner that leads to the moving staircases, he turns, crashes against someone and sees his book fall by the feet of the other person. Sharp smile, hair as white as a January morning, glacial stare, sly fury disguised as grandeur and a tone of voice deliberately filled with contempt. Lucius Malfoy, with his three Slytherin minions. Splendid.

“Look, guys, Miss Lupin walking around without her Gryffindor bodyguards. Aren’t you afraid to give a single step without Black on tow, Lupin?”

“Not exactly, but thanks for this very touching concern.” Remus tries to walk past them. He’s tired, needs to get to class soon and has little interest in wasting time. “This has been a brief but interesting encounter. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” he lets the phrase fall but none of the Slytherins step aside.

“Leaving so soon, Lupin? Don’t you fancy me as much as Black or Potter?”

They still block his way.

“Got things to do, Lucius.”

“Really?” He walks closer in a manner that fails to be menacing. “I wonder what kind of things those are.”

“Excellent. I’m happy that you find me interesting enough to devote your time to thinking about me. It’s profoundly flattering.”

Three nights per month Remus transforms. The animal inside explodes in his chest and destroys him, tearing apart every cell and every slice of skin until there is nothing left of the student with threadbare uniforms. He knows that the wolf is not just a product of a vile bite from many years ago; it’s part of him. It’s his rage, the fury that inhabits the depth of his stomach. Three nights per month, that rage is an explosion that could destroy Lucius Malfoy with nothing but one swift strike of his fangs. The rest of the time, Lucius’ bullying and his insinuations leave Remus feeling indifferent. Unlike James and Sirius, Remus tries to choose his battles.

“Tell us, Lupin, do you polish Black’s wand or Potter’s? Or do they take turns so that there’s no jealousy?” Malfoy shortens the distance between them. Remus is not a wolf but he carries one inside that is capable of sniffing Malfoy’s hatred, feel it resonating with lethal intensity. “How does it work? Are you Black's and Potter's girlfriend at the same time or do they take turns?"

Remus steps back so as not smell his breath.

“Malfoy! Get your filthy face away from him if you don’t want me to make it uglier than it already is.”

_Great, Padfoot, come and save me, that is sure to kill all the teasing._

Lucius steps away in an instant, he turns and the satisfaction in his eyes shines at getting the fight he had been trying to pick. Behind him, wand in hand, exuding energy from a Quidditch practice, showing off, looking at Malfoy as if he were a pest in the flesh, and wishing for something onto which to vent his constant anger is the most over bearing, tallest and strongest of the sixth grade Gryffindors.

“Look who’s here to defend his girlfriend.”

Sirius, obviously.

“What’s going on here, Malfoy?”

He stares at Malfoy’s minions, invading their personal space. Remus knows he would love to growl at them, give them a warning bite and piss at their feet to mark his territory. He knows that the dog was no casual decision and that the Animagus status is just an alibi to bring the animal caged inside to open air. Sirius didn’t choose the dog; the dog chose him. The dog has always been there.

“Nothing here, Black.” There are no words to describe how much scorn trickles at Malfoy’s every word. “Just chatting, no need to get jealous,” he challenges, putting emphasis on the last word. _Jealous._

Remus tries to sow peace in a minefield. “Nothing going on, Sirius. I was leaving.”

It’s useless. There’s barely a few centimeters between Lucius Malfoy’s pointy chin and Sirius Black’s jaw and it looks like at any moment either one of them will bridge that gap and bite.

“You heard the lady, Black, she needs someone to walk her home.”

At any other given time, that comment would have resulted in a flying punch, Slytherin blood spilled on the floor and detention for Sirius, or even worse, that expulsion that’s always held over their heads. But this time Remus reacts, he steps forward, puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder, lowers his voice, adopts a contained severity in his gaze, murmurs “not worth it, Padfoot” and Sirius’ fury evaporates as if a wolf’s breath had extinguished a fire with a single puff. He steps back, throws one last fiery look on Malfoy’s direction and follows Remus’ steps toward Gryffindor tower murmuring under his breath the usual curses against everything that has been and will be Slytherin.

“Fucking moron. What the fuck do you think he meant?”

_He meant that I like boys, Sirius. That’s what he meant._

During a full moon, Sirius can track a scent from miles away, but he is incapable of looking at Remus and notice there’s a boy under the wolf who howls for him when the moon is not full.

The most intelligent wizard, the most clueless of dogs.

Sometimes Remus wonders if Sirius is the only one in the whole school who hasn’t noticed.

 

 

**Sirius**

It’s the name that overruns his thoughts, the most recurrent one in that interior litany that follows him everywhere he goes. Sirius is the name he hears when his heart begins to change, its beating increasing, driven by the moon. Remus feels him in those instants, the only thing he feels. Sirius mere centimeters away, supporting his weight while he’s still a man. _Only flesh, Remus, it’s only flesh._

Sirius is what remains in the border between a man and a wolf.

Sirius Black, who always walks into the common room with great strides, speaking loudly so everyone can hear. Sirius, who needs attention like Remus needs the moon and laughs in exploding bursts and has bought an absurd motorbike that he’s trying to charm so it can fly, all in an attempt to show off. Sirius, who’s in a never-ending quest for dishonest intentions and wants to turn everything to mischief. Sirius, who one day discovered his lycanthropy and turned his penance into a game by simply saying “Well, if you’re a werewolf there must be something we can do to not leave you alone” and was unaware that at that moment Remus Lupin gave him more than three nights every month and solemnly swore to never abandon him, to not let his fury consume him.

Sirius Black. Desired by half the female population in Hogwarts and hated by the other half, who expected more from him than furtive late night meetings and hardly a glance the morning after. Sirius, who torments Snape and is so brilliant he doesn’t need to study and seems born to magic, his control over it so instinctive and strong that he scares some of the professors. Sirius, who sometimes stays in the common room because he can’t sleep, puts his feet on the table and adopts that rapt expression. He talks to Remus in a low voice because there are no other chronic insomniacs around. Sirius, who in that precious moment, with his guard down, lets the other Sirius come to the surface, the one that is disgruntled, sad and worried about Death Eaters and Voldemort and his family’s involvement in the brewing war. Sirius, who hates himself for being part of the bad seed. Misunderstood, lonely by force. _We’re a pair of renegades, Moony. You and I, a pair of renegades._ Sirius, whose confessions are night bound. _If I hadn’t met you and James maybe I would be like the rest of my family, Remus. Just like them._ Sirius. It’s the name that beats in his dreams, in all the phases of the moon. _You guys are my family, Moony._ And he is theirs.

Sirius, his family, his brother, his best friend. Sirius, who has all the girls he could want and most of the time ignores them because he prefers to cause trouble with James or take a furtive trip to Hogsmeade under the invisibility cloak to steal Firewhisky and Butterbeer. Sirius, who howls muggle music when he’s drunk and has a dog-like grin and is way, way more attractive than Remus wishes he were. Because by the gods would his life be much more simple if the damned big-headed moron had less reasons to be so satisfied with himself.

In the mornings he looks at himself in the mirror and, while James brushes his teeth, says:

“Fuck, James, how can I be this handsome?”

James spits the paste into the sink.

“Fucking mystery.” They enjoy taunting one another. “Sometimes I stay up late just thinking about it, man.”

“Really? Here I was thinking you were wanking over Lily.”

In the bathroom, Sirius hugs him from behind and James tries to get away without swallowing his toothbrush. They make jokes about wands and there’s an intimacy, a masculine and physical ease between them that Remus doesn’t share but enjoys observing from the outside. He watches as Sirius shouts, “I love you, Jamie!” and James protests “Down, boy!”.

He lets out a deep sigh, the one that always sounds the same.

Oh. Sirius.

 

 

**So many names for a single wolf**

Remus is a fairy. Fag. Faggot. Poofter. Lupin is a girl. A shirt lifter. A pillow bitter. Remus Lupin is effeminate. From the other team. Weirdo. Freak. Remus is a little girl, a pervert, one of _those._ The kids in his muggle school would yell “faggot!” at him and one time locked him up in the broom cupboard for a whole day. Remus knows he’s clumsy and weak and sickly and different. He knows he’s more intelligent and less combative than the other boys. He knows he’s the bone to be punched for them to jump: James Potter and Sirius Black, the undeniable kings of school. Wizards ahead of their time, athletes extraordinaire, born heart breakers, marauders by excellence. Remus is like them but different. Remus is older, Remus is different. Remus is weak.

Remus is, everyone knows though no one says it, gay.

Everyone says it behind his back, it is rumoured by all. And rumours, those things that no one says but somehow get around an entire student population, are like gasoline in Hogwarts. They extend through all stone corners and come to life in the magic paintings that move as students walk past. If Sirius hasn’t even heard the rumours, it’s probably because being the main topic of almost all the gossip in Hogwarts must take up too much of his time.

Scarcely days away from Halloween, Sirius and James train above the Quidditch pitch as Remus watches from a library window. They cross the skies, their brooms so close they look like a single shadow, swift and untouchable. At the table behind him, seemingly wrapped up on an Occlumency book, Lily Evans lets her red curls fall to the table as she reads.

“If you want to know my opinion, you’re worth much more than either of them.”

He turns around, startled. Her eyes remain on the book. When she looks up at him, Remus notices for the first time those big green eyes that keep James Potter on tenterhooks and understands exactly why his friend has trouble falling asleep. Her gaze makes him feel safe. That afternoon they do their homework together. Remus helps with Latin, Lily simply helps.

 

 

**Difficult Positions**

A few weeks later, on a Friday before Christmas, Sirius’ explosive laughter resonates like thunder in doomsday’s vault and James has to ask him to quiet down if he doesn’t want to wake up the ghost from the portraits. They share stories under the invisibility cloak and realize they’re getting too big for the cloak to cover them all on their nighttime escapades to the kitchens. They walk in line. James. Remus. Sirius.

“Padfoot?” says Remus quietly.

“Hmmm?”

Anyone could tell he’s drunk.

“You’re poking me with your wand.”

“And who told you that was my wand?”

James tells them both to shut it but Remus is sure the entire school has heard his heart jump at that joke- _because it was just a joke, Remus._

“You two want to shut up before they catch us five steps away from the tower?”

“Don’t be jealous, Prongs, this cloak is big enough for the three of us.”

He laughs again, but this time it’s more of a chuckle, like a satisfied dog.

 

 

**A girl in enemy territory**

Spring. Lily climbs the steps to the boy’s dormitory with Remus to help him bring down books to the library. It’s the first time she’s up there and Remus shows her the gramophone he got in Hogsmeade and an Ella Fitzgerald record he unwraps with studied reverence. The record scratches a little as it begins to turn and turn and soon fills the dormitory with the spirit of light magic.

Lily walks around a little. There’s a broom on a bed. She pretends to be interested in the broom and not the bed.

“That’s not James’ bed, it’s Sirius’.”

“Should I care?”

Remus gives her a speculative look.

“Please, Lily.”

They lie down on Remus’ bed and listen to the record, song by song, soulfully. Lily lies down on her side and rests her head on her arm. When she laughs, Remus’ entire body vibrates. They talk about exams, professors and their pet peeves, the yearly season at Hogwarts, which Beatle is the most handsome, which of the marauders has the biggest ego and above all, they talk about how wonderful and easy everything would have been if

“…you fancied me and I fancied you, Remus.”

“Think about it, though, our kids would have been all nose. Could you have lived with that?”

They go down to the common room by mid-afternoon and leave the covers wrinkled, with red hairs on the pillow and Lily’s perfume hanging in the air. The questioning would have been inevitable anyhow, but even more so when they see Sirius and James heading to the dormitory with their hair wet and an expression of barely restrained surprise in their eyes.

James.

“What were you doing up there? Together?”

Lily ignores them. She kisses Remus on the cheek before walking away.

“See you later, Remus.”

She doesn’t even look their way.

“See you later, Potter.” Before he can reply or tries to stop her, she says goodbye to Sirius with a laconic “Black” that he acknowledges with a dry “Evans.”

After the initial shock, James loses his cool somewhat.

“What the fuck have both of you been doing up there?”

Sirius is about to join James on the third degree heart attack, but Remus quickly and firmly says:

“One, we’ve been listening to music. Two, we’re just friends and three, no, Sirius, we have not been going through your things and your marihuana is exactly where you left it.”

 

 

**All because of her**

Lily’s visit to the boy’s dormitory unleashes powerful interior waves and after three weeks Remus has had enough. Three weeks of James’ constant pestering. And when James isn’t around, Sirius takes over. _Are you sure you don’t like Lily, Moony? Are you **sure?**_ Both are persistent but, holy heavens, is James the worst.

“You fancy Lily.”

“I don’t fancy Lily.”

“Don’t try to hide it.”

“James, do we have to go through this again?”

“It’s ok. You fancy her and you think she fancies you and you don’t want to tell me because you know that I’ve liked her since I first looked at her six years ago. But it’s fine, you fancy her.”

“James…”

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“I wouldn’t deny it if it were true.”

“Of course, that just clears up everything.”

“Would you care to explain what is EVERYTHING?”

Sirius remains quiet and watches from a corner in the common room. Alert like a dog waiting for a hunter’s kill to hit the ground to go in search of it.

“Everything. Your study sessions with her, the fact that she’s always with you, and specially that you never go out with girls.”

“James, for the last time…”

“Don’t tell me you don’t fancy Lily!”

“I don’t fancy girls!”

“How can you not…” but he cuts himself off midsentence. “Then what…?” then he gets it. “Oh.” He ponders it. “Oh. Ok.” He thinks about it for a couple of seconds and then he seems ecstatic, like the heaviest of weights has been lifted from his life. “Great!”

“I’m glad that my homosexuality can bring you happiness, James. Can we stop talking about Lily now?”

James is so happy that he hugs him and says, “You got it, Moony, you got it”. That day, Sirius learns what the whole school has always known. He’s gay. Remus. HIS Remus.

 

 

**Remus**

It’s the name scarred by the moon, the one hardest to summarize because it covers almost everything. Remus is the kid he met on the first day of school when he climbed into the Hogwarts express, bursting with childlike wonder, and filled a whole compartment with his luggage so that no one he disliked could sit with him and ruin his journey. Remus is the face that peered through the door, with those enormous eyes, hair wet from the insistent rain and tunic a size too big and said, “Excuse me, could I sit with you?” Then he sneezed and added, “I’m sorry. I’ll try the next one”.  Remus is the kid who made Sirius feel a sudden sympathy that made him move his luggage to the side and say “sit down, mate, this one’s free”. The boy dragged his bag with great effort and taught him a spell to stop the windows from fogging up so they could see the landscape. He extended his hand and said with a solemnity that would always be his alone “Remus Lupin, pleased to meet you,” and he sneezed again while Sirius smiled and introduced himself. “Black. Sirius Black.”

Remus is the shadow of an older man stuck in a body that will always seem a bit awkward, as if growing too fast without molding into itself. He will always be the boy that sat under the sorting hat and was almost completely covered by the garment while it shouted “Gryffindor!” before it hit his shoulders. Remus is that omnipresent nose, a book under his face, and a half smile that shines in his eyes before appearing on his lips. Remus is a muggle gramophone and dry humor that pops up when one least expects it. Remus is the one who refuses to stay up late but can’t sleep when the full moon approaches. Remus is pain in its virgin state when three nights per month he explodes, he falls apart in a thousand pieces and sometimes, when the initial pain arrives, the first contraction of the moon under the skin, he takes his hand over his heart and closes his eyes, grinds his teeth, painfully moans and murmurs his name. _It’s here, Sirius. I can already feel it._  

Remus is the true spirit of the marauder map; the one who figured out how to make it work when none of James and Sirius’ spells worked. Remus is everything that Sirius will never be: patient, temperate like tea in the morning, reasonable, sickly and clumsy. Remus always knows what must be said and is the only one who can tame the Black personality with only a look, a gesture, or a smile. _You’ve always been a very grumpy dog, Padfoot._ Remus is the one who baptized him that night they became Animagi. James was so euphoric and wanted to be Prongs and proposed that Sirius should be Fleabag, making Peter laugh for hours. And Remus, with that quiet humor of his, said _I think we should call you… Padfoot._

Remus is something Sirius almost can’t explain. The best wizard in Hogwarts, probably, even if he doesn’t know it. But more than that, Remus is who makes Sirius Black believe again that magic is more than uncontrolled energy. With Remus, magic is a whole other thing; something better, for which Sirius has no words. It’s been some time now that his faith in magic is part of his faith in Remus Lupin, who will always look distracted and focused at the same time. Absent and present. And, Sirius has always known, the person who can more strongly awaken his overprotective canine instincts.

He searches for Malfoy in the Slytherin dungeons, walking with great strides. He walks up to him with no preamble, grabs him by the neck of his shirt and pushes him up against the nearest stone wall. He picks him up two inches about the ground with no apparent effort. The other Slytherins have no time to react.

“Just a warning, Malfoy. If you ever mess with Remus again or I hear word that you’ve made his life little less than pleasant because your disgusting presence has inconvenienced him in any way, shape or form, I will curse you with a spell so unsettling that you’ll wish I had let you choke here and now. Have I made myself clear?”

There’s hate in Malfoy’s eyes but he has no air to answer. Sirius seems satisfied and lets him fall to the floor. Three steps away, he hears Lucius’ rasping voice from the floor.

“What then? Lupin can’t stand up for himself?”

Sirius turns and is tempted to spit on Lucius’ face but he holds himself.

“Let me explain it so you understand, Lucius. Remus is too good to put a hand on you.”

Remus is the best of them, damn it.

 

 

**Just give me a name**

“Well?”

“Well what?”

Remus and Sirius study for their exams. Though it would be more accurate to say that Remus studies and Sirius, who is too brilliant for his own good, keeps his books closed, puts his biker boots on the table and passes time by bothering Remus. Messing his hair, being irritating, suffocating and, in other words, being Sirius.

“Shouldn’t we talk about it?”

“Talk about it?” Remus gives no credit to what he hears and looks up from his book.

_Talk about my sexuality with the guy I fancy. Wouldn’t that be great?_

“Come on, man, you can’t blurt that out and, I don’t know, just stay there… being.”

“And yet I am inclined to believe I can.”

There’s a brief silence but Remus knows that is nothing more than a parenthesis. What else would it be? Sirius is a dog with a used sock, he leaves it be and not two seconds later is back to chew on it.

He reclines against his seat.

“You could have told me.” The shameless bastard has the nerve to give him the sad puppy look when he says, “We’re friends. So many secrets…” he clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “First I find out that you are a werewolf, then that you like the Beatles more than their songs, so what’s gonna be next?”

_You like the Beatles more than their songs._

Lord. The idiot has too much charm. Too much, dammit. It’s impossible to be angry with him more than five minutes.

“What are we gonna find out now, Remus? That you turn into a mermaid with the rising tide? Because I’m warning you I won’t turn into a mermaid for you, Moony.”

“It’s called merman, Sirius.”

“Whatever.”

The conversation should end there. The conversation should not continue. Remus thinks that the conversation shouldn’t have happened in the first place. But it’s useless. Sirius needs to know. It’s not enough to have a confirmation that he’s into boys, that’s too abstract. There’s a buried bone and the hairy git needs to track it down and dig it out. He needs to know which boy Remus likes because, according to Sirius, James has Lily and his obsession with her and he has “a legion of fans greater than Paul and John combined” and Peter has to “learn to wank in silence”, but Remus has no one.

It’s difficult to give credence to what he’s hearing.

“You want to be my matchmaker?”

Sirius shrugs. Typical. He wears his tie loose and dirt-covered boots. That and a satisfied smile.

“Sirius, I’m not your pet. What are you gonna do? Turn into a homosexual on the full moon and take me to Hogsmeade to pick up men?”

 _That sounded a tad defensive._ Also, he thinks he’s blushing. Just a little but easy to catch with his complexion. Sirius’ expression transforms almost immediately. A sharp change, nearly cruel. He turns humble, smooth, liquid, as if all the Black had abandoned him and there was only Sirius, a faithful dog, a tired hound.

“I just want you to be happy, Remus.”

Remus’ heart beats at top speed. He wonders what would happen if he told Sirius that he already has what he has, at least all he could have. If he told him “I only want you”. If he opened his heart and showed him the dark side of the moon.

“I’m acceptably happy, Padfoot.”

Sirius leans forward on the table, tilts his head.

“Alright,” he looks him on the inside, where no one else looks. “But let me know when acceptable stops being reasonable.”

Remus feels a lump in his throat. He swallows, feels faint, and babbles. Or so he thinks.

“I solemnly swear.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work was written in the early 2000's, some details, characters and etc. from the later half of the book series(which had not been published yet at the time) may not appear or will be different than canon.

**Geronimo**

Hogsmeade. They know the town very well, the badly lit corners of the Three Broomsticks, the surprises hidden at Zonko’s. One by one, they’ve tasted all the candy from Honeydukes and there are no more flavours to explore with their eyes closed. The third week of April begins with an unusually warm day and the southern wind beckons them to get away from town in search of landscapes they can call their own. James guides them through a fairly unused path that lies on a hill in which Hogwarts is a blurry stain on the horizon. Below is a shiny, small and uneven lake to which they all walk down almost on all fours. It’s noon when they reach the shore, and the heat shimmers on the surface of the water. James doesn’t even have to look at Sirius. They anticipate each other, as if reading each other’s mind, and challenge one another to see who does it first, taking off their clothes as they run. Sirius is the first to the rocky promontory.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he proclaims, as if he were talking to an impatient crowd before a great play. He takes off his boots without using his hands, gets rid of his shirt and proceeds to pull down his jeans. “One of the Seven Wonders of the World!” he shouts. His arms extended, in full sunlight, completely naked. “Sirius Black!”

His body draws a perfect curve in the air. He brings his hands together as he falls and breaks the water as if a hidden force were pulling him under. It’s an athletic performance that Remus observes from the shore while James throws himself in the water yelling “YEEEHAAA!” and Peter splashes everything between the lake and Hogwarts as he leaps into the water. Sirius comes out like a bullet and Remus realizes he has been holding his breath until then, as if he had also been to the bottom of the lake.

“Holy shit!” he shakes his head to get the hair away from his face. “It’s fucking cold!” Sirius stands up, water dripping on his chest. It’s like he’ll be young forever. He looks at a spot on the water in front of him. “Dear God, it’s a giant eel!” he fakes mortal fear and then smiles jokingly. “Oh, never mind, it’s me, I’m just naked.”

The swimming lasts no more than ten minutes. Enough time to make James believe Lily is coming over, and watch him dunk Sirius’ head underwater for it. Enough time for Sirius to ask Peter if that “thingy” is the reason why they call him Wormtail. Enough time for Remus to enjoy this time from the shore, with his heart in his stomach. Sirius swims in the lake. In the magic of life.

Remus bathes in him.

“You should try, Moony,” he comes out a little later. Dries his face and arms with his own shirt. “It’s overwhelming.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

 

 

**Constant expulsion warning**

He has heard it so many times, “you’ll end up expelled, Sirius”. “Sooner or later they’ll throw you out, Sirius”. “Control yourself, Sirius”. He feigns indifference. Affirms that rules are made to be broken. That that’s what life is made for: to throw yourself at walls until they crumble to the ground or you pass out from trying. He’s one of those people who never thought about walking on grass until they saw the “DO NOT WALK ON GRASS” sign. When he walks into the Slytherin dungeons, skipping Transfiguration class, and casts a spell so all the underwear and socks parade up and down the Great Hall during lunch and spell out words, he knows he’ll end up in the Headmaster’s office. Lectured, penalized, blah, blah, blah.

It’s worth it just to see the jubilant expressions in James and Peter’s faces and to see Remus’ face as he says “for the love of God, Padfoot”. It’s worth it to have every single bit of underwear in Slytherin spell out his name for the whole school to see. _Sirius_. The dots of the two i’s are Severus Snape’s socks.

 

 

**Dirty Blood**

Sirius rebels because why not. Because he gets bored. Because he can. Because he wants to. Because it’s his way of spitting on that unfortunate last name he carries, that curse that follows him. He rebels to mark his territory and anger all the Blacks. He rebels to exemplify the Gryffindor spirit and nevertheless knows that if, when push came to shove, he doesn’t get expelled from Hogwarts- from the home of the Gryffindors, from everything that matters to him- it will be precisely because of that last name, that lineage he detests. Class rules the wizarding world and the Blacks are pure aristocracy. No school has ever dared to expel him. When the professors denounce his behaviour, they do it almost condescendingly, murmuring, “That’s Walburga’s kid, the black sheep of the family”. It used to bother him a long time ago, that stigma. But he understands his family enough to know that turning into a pest among them is a status to be upheld with pride. Their threats can’t scare him. If he was ever expelled from school, his mother would be forced to acknowledge publicly that her son is not good enough for Hogwarts, and there is no chance in all the magical world that she would resign herself to that fate without pulling some strings.

However, when Albus Dumbledore tells him his permanence in the school is in danger- _I fear that condoning certain behaviour is a bad example for the rest of the students-_ , Sirius Black believes that for the first time in his brainless life he has royally fucked it all up.

Disheartened he climbs to the headmaster’s office as if each step was heavier than the last and it was his legs and not the staircase that were made of stone. When he gets to the door, he knocks slowly, meekly, wanting to rectifying his last prank, the one that can kick him out of Hogwarts and at the same time end his life because without that school, back at home, Sirius is just a Black. And being one is worth less than nothing. He hears Dumbledore’s voice inviting him in and prepares for the worst.

But he doesn’t prepare properly because, when he sees her, his stomach flips and his heart starts pumping something vile.

“Hello, mother.”

Walburga is pure and contained anger, the seven heads of a hydra glaring at him. She has the same dark hair as him, the same symmetrical facial features. Everything in her reminds him of himself. Everything makes him feel insignificant and sick.

“Sit down, Sirius.”

 

 

**Walburga Black and the art of discipline**

The rebukes are always the same. _I know you enjoy tarnishing your family’s name._ He’s heard them hundreds of times. _No, mother._ Phrases used in many occasions, for an infinity of reasons. _I will not allow you to be expelled from this school._ They sound empty to him, as if his mother were an echo, a shadow. _I know, mother._ The same old lecture. The same old reproach.

“Could you leave me alone with my son for a minute, Headmaster?”

Reclined against his seat, Dumbledore only moves his eyes. He silently asks Sirius _You want me to leave, son?_ In that moment, Sirius detests him with all his might. For writing to his mother. For wanting to leave. For being willing to stay. _Go, old man._ He looks away and Dumbledore limps out. When he comes back a few minutes later he notices the office smells different but everything seems to be in its place. Old headmasters sleep in their portraits. Books of magic rest on their shelves. Walburga sits in the same chair, her back straight, fearsome posture. And Sirius beside her, silent.

“I hope not to receive more owls from school, Sirius. I hope I don’t have to come back.”

“Me too, mother.”

As he says goodbye, Dumbledore extends his hand to shake Walburga’s. He tries to figure out why he feels cold to his stomach and what is the damn smell that makes his skin crawl. When Sirius stands up, burning hate ripples across the air.

“He’s a good lad, Walburga,” _It has been a mistake to bring you here._ “He’s just a bit of a trickster.”

“I trust he will be taught discipline here, Headmaster.”

She leaves without turning back. Her son’s eyes follow her. Dumbledore looks at him from head to toe, his hair falling over his face and an unrecognizable storm in his eyes.

“Are you alright, son?”

“Yes, Professor.”

It’s an automatic response. Dumbledore wants to ask more but can’t. Instead, he tries to smile, gives him a pat on the shoulder and registers the moment when Sirius cringes at first contact, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth.

“I’m fine,” and everything in him says the opposite. Dumbledore can sense the unspoken waves of bitter reproach. _You left me alone with her, Professor. You don’t know what my mother can be like, Professor. You have no idea._

When he’s left alone in the office, the headmasters in the portraits open their eyes. They stay silent, but he can read everything on their faces. The stench in the room, Dumbledore will never forget it. It’s the aristocratic blood of the Blacks, a legendary family that worships power and magical purity and that imposes their lessons by force of a wand when deemed necessary, even if that force has to fall on the backs of their children.

_I trust he will be taught discipline._

Dumbledore hopes he’ll learn something more than that.

“We obviously can’t call on Walburga again. It would be reckless to make the same mistake twice.”

The portraits murmur in agreement. Walburga’s perfume leaves a mark; it reeks for hours.

 

 

**Dogs infected by rage: Remus vs. Sirius**

Walburga has an immediate and chilling effect on him, freezing his centre of emotions like a paralyzing ray. When he walks out of Dumbledore’s office, Sirius feels empty, like a hollow shell, once filled of more than just promises. He gets to the Gryffindor common room without knowing exactly how he got there. James and Peter are immersed in a chess game. Remus rests on the couch, with his feet on the ottoman, reading by the fire. That peace, Remus’ soothing energy, is suddenly irksome and vexing.

Sirius’ blood boils to see him so peaceful.

“What did Dumbledore say?” asks James.

Remus waits for the answer.

“Nothing. My mother has been more than eloquent.”

He wants to bite. He wants to bite, no matter what, no matter who crosses his path. It’s rage against his mother, against Dumbledore, against anyone that says the wrong thing. Remus seems alarmed at the mention of Walburga. Fuck him. Fuck them all.

“He sent an owl to your mother?” Remus tries to calm him down with a look. At least that’s what it looks like to Sirius. Maybe it’s just worry. Whatever it is, it’s annoying. “What did you tell her?”

 _What did I tell her? Why don’t you ask me what she told me?_ His back burns. It’s not the first time. His mother’s wand is made for dark magic; it destroys flesh, leaves behind wounds greater than the moon.

“She can stuff her last name wherever she can.”

Disappointed, Remus looks to the floor, clicks his tongue and that subtle disapproval takes Sirius beyond his limits, infects him with rage. He feels the desire to kill him, to turn into a dog and tear out his head one bite at a time. Put fangs to flesh, force the wolf out.

“Instead of making her angry on purpose, don’t you think it would be smarter to avoid any confrontation with her?”

It’s the last straw for Sirius’ patience.

“Avoid any confrontation…” he murmurs. “Like you do, for example? I have to try to be nice to the entire world? Change like the moon so no one’s upset? Just like that?”

His own voice sounds foreign to him, it distils the essence of dark magic. He sounds like everything he hates. As if his mother were speaking through his mouth. He regrets it as soon as he says it, and knows that he would do it again if he had the opportunity. It’s his blood. That retched inheritance that flows through his veins. It’s his fault, and not his mother’s that there’s pain in Remus’ eyes when he stands up and grabs his coat.

“No, Sirius. I would never think of telling you to be nice. Or even fair.”

He leaves without looking back. Several minutes pass before James and Peter move a piece in their game.

“If you’re about to tell me that I’ve gone too far and to apologize, Potter, you can save yourself some breath.”

“Why do you always let it out on him, Padfoot?”

“Not a fucking clue.”

_Because he always forgives me._

 

**Flock of black sheep**

Sirius doesn’t walk. Sirius flies through the halls that take him to the garden. Furious, he feeds on self-loathing, which is the most sublime form of hatred. He prays to run into Snape or Malfoy, and have a perfect excuse to let it all out. After contemplating turning and going on the hunt for rabbits, he ends up in that shed that’s almost abandoned, and imagines it’s solitary enough for no one to discover him and the whiskey bottle James hides somewhere in there. The last thing he expects is to find someone already inside. Even less expected that the someone is her.

“Evans? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Polite as always, Black.”

He stays at the door, uncertain.

“Are you gonna close the door? It’s cold.”

He hesitates but obeys. There she is, in all her glory. Lily Evans. Perfect student, perfect prefect, perfect everything. Inside the stinky, humid, decadent garden shed. Red hair falling over her face and green eyes full of tears. Slightly embarrassed to be discovered. Slightly devastated. She lifts her chin with dignity. Sirius likes people who raise themselves to hide a weakness.

“What are you doing here?”

This time he asks with honest curiosity.

“I could ask the same thing,” she dries her face with her sleeve in a gesture that would seem masculine but in her looks delicate. Beautiful green eyes, that Evans. Normal that James is almost hypnotized by them. Poor Prongs, he’s got as much chance with her as Sirius has of becoming the Minister for Magic, but hope is the food of dreamers.

“What are you doing here, Black?”

“I wanted to be alone.”

“Same here.”

“But you’ve ruined my plan.”

“Same here.”

They don’t talk often. Well, they’re not friends. Yes, sure, they’re in the same house but one does not become the friend of the girl one’s best friend likes. One keeps one’s distance and hopes for one’s best friend to get lucky with the girl and for him to not stop doing fun things once they get together. That is the kind of relationship to be had with the girl one’s best friend likes, who always looks so dignified yet discontent. Lily Evans is probably the only girl his age- and from other years- that he hasn’t flirted with at least once, and maybe because of that they end up in that shed waiting for the rain to stop with a bottle of fire whiskey that Sirius swears he has found by “one of those magical coincidences, Evans, I promise”. Lily doesn’t drink and at first doesn’t even talk, but it’s raining, there’s nothing to do and Sirius can be very unrelenting when he wants to know something. Lily gives up, finally.

“Family problems.”

“Something serious?” maybe someone is sick. Or worse. A tragedy. If his mother ever fell sick he would throw a party and pray to the moon for a painful convalescence, but there are people who have a slightly more tolerable family. Maybe Evans is one of those people.

“No, nothing like that. They don’t like me going here, that’s all.”

It’s not all, of course… Lily has gotten a letter with Petunia’s unmistakable handwriting.

“ _Lily, for the love of God, stop sending me letters. That horrid owl scares the neighbours and I don’t want to have to explain to my friends that my sister is not normal, you understand? In the real world, Lily, you are an embarrassment. Don’t you get it? Do you want me to be an embarrassment as well?”_

It’s not the first time Petunia tells her something like that. It shouldn’t hurt. But it does. She doesn’t say that to Sirius. And at the same time she doesn’t need to say it for him to feel a profound and immediate sympathy for her. Another black sheep. He drinks to celebrate it. It almost soothes the burn on his back. It mustn’t be easy to be a witch in a muggle family. Kind of like being a rebellious Gryffindor in a family of Slytherins with deep ties to dark magic.

“If you don’t like your family, Evans, I can let you borrow mine.”

She narrows her eyes at him. Gorgeous eyes, no doubt about it. Green like emeralds in a storm.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew my family.”

Sirius lets out an almost canine sight.

“You haven’t met my mother. Fifteen minutes with her and you will want to marry Snape.”

“Come on, Sirius. You’re one of the Blacks. You would change that to be a muggle born? A mudblood?”

Only for a moment, Sirius Black lets the blustering façade fall and all the raging fury dilutes into absolute nothingness in those green eyes that calm him. He drops the boasting, all his barking, and the entire showing off attributes of an animal in heat.

“There’s nothing more dirty than my blood, Evans. That I can guarantee.”

There’s a silence in the border of comfortable and awkward and Lily breaks it with a reverent “Thanks” that emerges from the bottom of her heart. Outside, the horizon threatens with a storm and neither of them knows exactly how to behave after that. Alone in a shed.

“You know, Evans? You should give poor James a chance,” a couple of drinks makes him feel confident enough to say it. “He is a good guy with some bad company,” he winks and she won’t admit it but Sirius knows she finds it amusing.

“That’s what I’ve always thought. I trust Remus will balance such malignant influences.”

_Remus._

The thought of him makes Sirius’ heart feel heavy, and he needs to find a way to redeem himself, and ask for forgiveness. Lily’s expression turns to curiosity.

“Did something happen between you two?”

“No. Something. Nothing important.”

Lies. Because when it comes to Remus, everything is important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up in 3 weeks. 
> 
> Thanks go to my two betas for their time and patience: [Eugenia](http://earthhorsewoman.tumblr.com/) and [Stephanie](http://rainagainstmywindow.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work was written in the early 2000's, some details, characters and etc. from the later half of the book series(which had not been published yet at the time) may not appear or will be different than canon.

**An insipid reward**

At first hour of the afternoon, the cauldrons are bubbling in Potions class. Professor Slughorn strolls among the tables and frowns at the slightest of murmurs. “This is an exam, gentlemen. If you were allowed to chat amongst yourselves, you would be sitting at a round table. Am I making myself clear, Mr. Malfoy?”

“Yes, Professor.”

The ingredients require precise timing. Sirius makes notes and keeps track of the elements’ coloring in the potion. Three rows in front of him, Remus’s cauldron placidly boils and the scarce light coming from the badly covered windows centers on him. As if the sun was courting him to make the moon jealous.

Six years of school and it’s the first time Remus puts any sort of distance between his cauldron and Sirius’.

_Fuck._

He adds the last ingredient and the liquid starts acting up, foam bursts up to the opening of the cauldron and is about to spill out. In half a minute later, the concoction evaporates suddenly and what’s left of it is a silvery liquid that reminds him of the moon on the first night of August.

“Excellent, Mr. Black,” professor Slughorn comments with satisfaction. “Ten points to Gryffindor.”

Sirius ignores the murderous glare Malfoy sends his way. Ignores Severus Snape at the back of the class, muttering insults under his breath. Remus still has his back to him and Sirius would give a hundred points and the House Cup to find the ingredient that would make him look back at him with one of his soothing smiles.

He thinks it’s time to beg for forgiveness. He’s going to make history because no one in his bloodline has ever asked for forgiveness in all the long and aristocratic history of the Black family. No one has even taught him how.

 

 

**Good dog**

There is an overgrown oak in the gardens. Laid back against the knots of the wood, Remus reads out loud and Lily listens with her head resting on one of his legs, and, in doing so, feeds school rumors and adolescent jealousy. They’re three days away from Remus’ birthday but Lily has given him his present in advance and now they both enjoy a first edition of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. _I found it in London, near Diagon Alley. Wilde has always reminded me of you._ Always. Every book, every story. Specially this one, that's fun and light and nonetheless stinks of pain behind every irony. It distils a well filled with bitterness that overflows with a shy and deep pain hidden behind every smile. It sounds as if instead of reading, Remus were writing every word he speaks. As if Wilde had been a humble werewolf, looking at the world from a corner, exiled from paradise.

She’s distracted by his voice, thinking of writers and werewolves when a dog comes by their spot. Her first reaction is to think she’s imagining it. The dog is a threatening shape, with long legs, furry tail and a strange expression that’s almost human. Remus stops reading abruptly but it’s Lily who stands up when the dog comes near. Docile, with its’ ears down and without a hint of aggressiveness.

“Look, what a pretty dog.” She approaches him cautiously, extending her hand to gauge the animal’s reaction. She smiles at the dog, close up he seems to be darker and shinier. He sticks out his tongue and sits on his hind legs. “That’s it, pretty boy. Are you lost?”

She’s scratches behind his ears, looking for a collar. Nothing.

“Do you have a master, handsome?” She drags her fingers through the dog’s fur and feels a sudden sympathy. “How did you get here?” Lily turns to look at Remus, as if repeating the question to him and her friend’s expression is difficult to define, somewhere between incredulous and irritated.

“He’s probably covered in fleas.”

“Don’t say that. Poor thing.”

The enormous animal barks in Remus’ direction, who still looks irritated.

“Someone must have abandoned him; don’t tell me you don’t feel a little pity for him.”

“Infinite.”

“Don’t be like that, Remus. He just wants someone to pet him. Isn’t that right, boy?”

The dog barks twice and nods as if he were taking part in the conversation.

“See?”

The animal takes a few steps in Remus’ direction. He shines with magical intensity, seeks the shadow of the tree and waits, looking at Remus with an intelligent and placid expression. Lily doesn’t know how to explain it; she believes herself the victim of some kind of spell but she could swear that something happens in that moment between them. A conversation that no one except man and beast can hear. The dog waits, slowly lowers his head and Remus seems to give in to some form of evidence that for Lily is a total mystery. Remus sighs, gives up, extends his hand and caresses the dog’s head; at that, the animal immediately lays down next to him and swings his tail against the grass. Remus scratches the dog’s neck and touches his ears. He has the hands of a painter, long and well-drawn fingers that glide on the dog’s back until it closes his eyes and yawns. The fingers look for the stomach, rub and slide back to the ears. The dog seems to be asleep, with his snout on Remus’ thigh exactly where Lily had rested her head.

“Remus, have you noticed? I think this dog loves you.”

It’s a casual comment but Remus’ sigh is not.

“Nah, he’s just an easy dog.”

The dog protests with a series of barks. A gust of wind shakes the oak’s branches and Lily leans against the trunk. Remus turns to the page where he had left off, reading out loud for her and the dog. He turns the pages with one hand. The other caresses the dog’s furry back, writing in a mysterious alphabet that only makes sense in the secret language of animals. The dog rests with his eyes closed and Lily gives in to the calmness he inspires.

Before sunset, the dog lifts his head, looks around with his ears in the air and takes off running towards Severus Snape who is crossing the garden towards the Slytherin dungeons. Snape has to run three hundred yards, breathless, to get rid of the _monstrous sack of fleas_ that keeps on biting his tunic.

“You’re gonna laugh, Remus, but I swear that dog reminds me of someone.”

“Really?”

Lily watches Snape’s angry gestures and she thinks the dog is having fun, barking and playing.

“Yes, I think he reminds me of Petunia’s boyfriend.”

Remus can’t help himself. His laughter can be heard in every corner of the garden.

 

 

**Ssshhh**

The four of them sleep in the same dormitory. Peter in the bed furthest from the door, then James, then Sirius, and finally Remus. His is the only bed that is always made and full of books and extended parchments. All of those things have been pushed to the side when Remus comes back from the garden and finds Sirius in human form, sitting crossed legged in the same spot where Remus sleeps every night and where he stays up late thinking of him.

“Finally tired of tormenting Severus?”

Sirius doesn’t answer. He stands up, shakes his head to move his hair away from his face. The most noble of beasts begs for Remus’ forgiveness. _I’m sorry, Moony_ looking at him in the eye, humbled as if he were in front of an altar and Remus Lupin goes breathless because he’s certain Sirius has never offered an apology in his life. _Forgive me_ coming from Sirius’ mouth is an unexpected honor. And it’s all his, just for him. They’re alone in their common dormitory and Sirius is more naked than he ever was in that lake by Hogsmeade. Remus’ heart beats faster, like it does on full moon nights when it starts expanding and threatens to explode. 

“Maybe I’m doomed to be like my mother, don’t you think? The same cursed flesh.”

“Flesh is nothing, Sirius.”

Flesh is light and ever-changing. Flesh is unstable and what remains is a whole other thing that is underneath, untouched by gravity or time. What remains is something more than flesh, and Sirius knows it. That’s why he puts his hand on Remus’ chest, with half a smile. He’s calm, as if it were simpler for him to communicate in that tactile language of dogs, instead of elusive and meaningless words. That hand is so hot, that the interior tides in Remus move in uneven patterns. He feels weak and loose and knows he’s lost. That hand will chase him in his dreams. It will appear in the mists of imagination, sneaking under his shirt, under his zipper, touching him, tempting him.

“You’re right,” his voice is lower than usual.

“I’m always right, Sirius,” almost a whisper.

The dog grins and the seventeen-year-old boy that coexists with him yields. He lowers his head and lets himself fall into Remus in an unexpected hug that Remus can only partially return, awkwardly petting his back, holding back the impulse of burying his face in Sirius’ hair and breathe in until he can no longer breathe. Sirius steps back and returns to himself, gradually.

 “Let’s never tell Prongs his girl has been close to my nether regions, huh?”

“Don’t worry. I can keep a secret.”

He would like to ask Sirius a favor in trade for his forgiveness. _Lay me down on that bed and lick me until you make me bark._ He would like to not want to ask anything, for Sirius to give him everything. That secret, along with many others, will be sealed under the flesh and the blood and the torturous vigilance of a lonely wolf.

 

 

**Accio magic!**

Spring is slow in waking that year. By mid-April Scotland sneezes from the cold and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wakes up to a frozen Sunday. James gets up in his pajamas, looks out the window and insists they have to “celebrate it”. Standing outside in front of the stone walls, Remus prepares the spell. Peter struggles on the frozen floor and Sirius taps his feet to keep warm.

“Moony, hurry up, will you? My balls are freezing over and Wormtail here hasn’t felt his since we walked out.”

Peter, walking slowly so as not to fall, confirms that, in fact, he doesn’t feel anything from the waist down. Remus ignores them both, and asks for a bit of silence. Naturally, asking Sirius to keep quiet is like begging the rain gods to visit the deserted plains of Kalahari.

“And if your balls are so cold, ask James to scratch them for you.”

“Hey, Jimmy, Remus wants you to do me a favor.”

They banter and taunt each other, Peter announces that soon the nightly prefect patrol will go by their dormitory and see their empty beds. Remus points towards the Gryffindor tower with his wand and his voice turns fervent and majestic when he speaks the enchantment.

_Accio luminem omnia!_

The violet ray of light that comes out of the wand scars the night sky and falls on the high towers of the castle. In a few seconds, the home of the Gryffindors sparkles and lights up as if millions of will-o’-the-wisp had gathered around it to bring it to life like a giant Christmas tree. Among the four towers, the home of the marauders is the only one alight. During the five minutes that it takes for the spell to die down the four of them stare, overflowing with euphoria. They’re filled with their own transformative power and Sirius feels the joy of magic in its purest state, when it’s used for light and goodness and it makes the mischief worth it.

“You’re incredible, Moony.” He puts his hand over Remus’ shoulder while they look at Hogwarts and their tower of dancing lights about to die out. “You’re fucking incredible.”

Remus carries a wolf inside but when the moon wanes he’s only a boy with too-big clothing who is too humble to play himself up so he only shrugs.

“Nah, it’s an easy spell.”

For once, Sirius becomes solemn. Hogwarts shines brightly in the middle of the night and in the deepest corner of his heart he knows that this will be the memory he will always have of his youth. The school, the light, his friends. The magic.

“The spell is the least of it, Remus.”

_The important thing is that you’re magic._

**Behave, gentlemen**

Arithmancy class. It doesn’t matter who starts the joke. This time it has been Peter but what follows is the same as always. The prank today is parchment enchanted with crude drawings of Snivellus pissing himself and running away as the pages turn. In the end it doesn’t seem important that it was little Peter who came up with the idea.  As it’s always been in life, the ones to do the work may not be the ones to take the credit. When the murmuring begins throughout the students, followed by giggles, the professor automatically assumes who is at fault.

“Potter, Black, silence if you want to stay in my class.”

Sirius is powerless against his own laughter. The image of a small Snape, crying as if his world had ended, with pee on his pants is too much. James ends up joining in and both of them are thrown out and given extra homework. Remus, who taught Peter how to do the spell, calmly remains in his seat. And Peter, the executing arm, stays as well. Because Peter, unlike James and Sirius, doesn’t get noticed. Not even by the professors.

“I assume Mr. Lupin doesn’t want to join his classmates.”

“No, Professor.”

“Excellent. Let’s continue.”

The miniature drawing of Snape pisses his pants again and Peter keeps waiting for someone to look at him.

 

 

**Big words for small feats**

Gryffindor and Slytherin. The match for the Quidditch Cup. The elements align for the final game: Clear skies, the sun full and bright. The benches buzz, supporting colors flashing. Green and silver, excellence and the purity of Slytherin. Red and gold, bravery and glory of Gryffindor. The players want to touch the sky but only James Potter, hailed by the crowd, manages to do so when he sees the snitch flying over his head and begins the chase.

The winged ball rises over the pitch like a rocket to the moon. When it dives, it buzzes past him, hisses, zigzagging between the players. It flies by a confused bludger and past a dozen brooms that could never catch up to it. James doesn’t take his eyes from it and far away he hears his last name as if it were being shouted by hundreds of small birds. When they’re close to the ground, the distance between snitch and seeker grows shorter by the millisecond and James Potter focuses all his senses. The sounds of the wind and the crowd disappear, as do the players, and the ground that seems to be getting closer and closer. They’re alone in the world, the golden winged ball moving like a nervous flea and him.

Some feet above him, Sirius avoids the opposing defense, flies into Slytherin territory and scores the necessary points to tie the match. It’s the perfect moment.

James aligns with the wind and the gods, extends his arm, closes his eyes and accelerates. He searches, he finds, he grips with all his might and changes course. He makes a phenomenal twist right before he can crash into the ground, the snitch in his hand, flapping its wings like a hummingbird fighting to get out of water and breathe.

Gryffindor stands burst with excitement and Slytherin loses- for the sixth consecutive year- their chances to win the cup. James catches his breath. Soon he is surrounded by the excitement and noise and the crowd carries him out of the pitch on their shoulders. In the middle of it all Sirius is exultant, exuberant, high on adrenaline. When James is finally back on his feet, Sirius’ hug almost brings him to the ground. Sirius, quite literally, vibrates with happiness.

“If you weren’t so ugly, Prongs, I would marry you.” He wears his ‘We’ve defeated the enemy, Potter’ grin, looking almost scary in their triumph. “Gods, Potter, you don’t know how much I love you, fuck!” He grabs James by the neck, messes his hair, and offers him up to the crowd like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, lifting up one of his arms as if he were a doll. “Ladies and gentlemen, James Potter!”

They praise him. Cheering, parties, victory. He’s congratulated by a mob of faces that blend with one another until he can’t tell them apart. Painted smiles, fleeting pats on the back, anonymous compliments that don’t mean as much as the very last one, at the end of the day, when the school has gone mute. He crosses paths with Lily, who is doing her prefect rounds, and pauses in front of him for just a second.

“Good night, Lily.”

“Good night.”

She walks past him and her perfume hurts where nothing else can reach. Where only she exists. He has to say something to her. Something. Anything.

“Did you watch the game?”

_That’s the dumbest question to go with, man._

“Sure, just like everyone.”

He has another question in mind. _Aren’t you going to congratulate me?_ But that one would be even dumber, so he decides to stay silent. He can’t think of anything to say to get through to her. Lily Evans makes him feel like a kid who can’t even pull up his own pants. He says good night again and when he’s taken a couple of steps, she calls out to him and his heart jumps so fast in his chest he thinks he might have swallowed the snitch.

“Potter?”

He turns. She’s so beautiful. Everything would be much easier if she weren’t so beautiful.

“Yes?”

Lily Evans is looking at him. No double intentions, no aggressiveness, with nothing except that feminine calmness that inspires him to win all the tournaments in the world.

“Great play.”

His throat goes dry. He wants to say something. Possibly _thank you_ but nothing comes out. He has just been congratulated by the person whose approval means everything, yet, suddenly, it means nothing. It has been just a match. In the school everyone expects him to be the best player but at night, in that deserted hallway in which glory is tasteless, a few steps from the woman that will never be for him, James Potter would give up everything to be a much inferior seeker and be a slightly better man.

“It’s not a big deal.”

He means it. He feels a thousand years older. It really wasn’t a big deal.

“It wasn’t bad, James.”

That night he goes to bed with a smile, and the last thing in his mind is Quidditch. _James._ It’s the first time she has called him by his name.

 

 

**Brrrrrum**

In the Shrieking Shack there is a stable in disuse and Sirius has charmed it so that the noises from the inside don’t scare the animals that come near that corner of the world that everyone avoids except for the marauders on the nights of the full moon and, from some time now, Remus, whenever he can get away. On Sunday, before lunch, Remus avoids a pair of professors and leaves James doing pirouettes above the Quidditch pitch. Outside the stable, he can only hear the birds chirping but when he opens the door he’s assaulted by a deafening, diabolical sound. It’s like a dying engine. But worse. It’s like a cat meowing in pain inside a dying engine.

In the middle of the stable is Sirius Black’s bike, the mastodon of carcasses with a sidecar that he has rescued from scraps, half of which are on the floor or in the wrong place. Sirius looks at it with adoration, his face full of grease marks and a smile that could illuminate a London night.

“Hear that, Remus?”

“Everyone in Scotland and parts of Wales can hear it. There are people in Oxfordshire that can hear it. A witch in Bath oweled to say she could hear it. “

“It’s music, Moony,” he yells above the roar.

“Sounds as if someone were begging for mercy.”

“Exactly. I imagine it’s my mother. Isn’t it the prettiest sound you ever heard?”

“Without a doubt. If Mozart were alive he would build a motorbike garage and burn his piano.”

Sirius turns off the motor. There’s a sparkle in his eyes. If there were a word that was only his it would undoubtedly be shameless.

“Sirius if you go around flying on a bike sooner or later someone will see you. And if the Ministry finds out you are scaring muggles with that piece of junk…” he doesn’t let Remus finish.

“Shhhh, don’t call her that, she’s very easily offended”

“How temperamental. I wonder who she got that from.”

Sirius touches the motor, as if it were one of the girls he gropes in the hallways at night and ignores in the mornings.

“Are you really gonna use it?”

“As soon as I can make her fly. But don’t worry. I’ll let you borrow it so that you can find a guy and let him ride on the back seat,” he makes a suggestive pause and adopts that mocking tone. “Unless you prefer to put him on the front so you can ride on the back, Remus.”

Sirius has that knowing look. His typical expression of a seducer in the school grounds. He’s making a joke, of course. Remus knows he’s making a joke but damn it, it looks good on him. His stomach jumps and shakes, but hell, if Sirius is joking then Remus can joke too, right?

“If the bike can handle it, Black, I can ride on the back and then on the front.”

It takes Sirius a second to react with a slow smile. As always, he’s happiest when someone can play with him and throw him a bone.

“The bike will handle it, Lupin. We’ll see if your guy can.”

 

**Inquisitive spirit**

In sixth year it’s Professor Rittenblast, a German woman with a harsh accent and a masculine bearing, who is in charge of Herbology. The last Monday in April is a spring promise that has not yet melted and Herr Rittenblast – with two t’s- sends the students to the authorized sections of the forest in pairs. Peter appropriates James, and Remus, for the first time in his life, wishes he could go with anyone that wasn’t Sirius.

They’re looking for cardamom and the wretched idiot can’t stay quiet.

“Sirius, don’t you know how to let it be?”

“What kind of stupid question is that? You know I don’t know how to let it be. Have I ever known how to let anything be?”

“As you have well explained, no.”

They have an hour ahead of them. Alone. In the forest. Looking for plants whose location and aspect Remus already knows. It’s the same forest where he takes walks during the day and runs on all fours by night. He knows it as if it were his hands. Sirius still hasn’t shut up.

“Come on, Moony. I tell you everything.”

“That’s not true.”

“Tell me something I haven’t told you.”

Remus doesn’t have to think much.

“The girl you were with Saturday night. What’s her name?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“See?”

He finds the cardamom in the shadow of a birch. He puts it in the bag and goes looking for honeysuckle. With Sirius following, of course.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I don’t remember her name,” worst of all is the honesty in his voice. “Elma. Or Elna.”

“Hedga? The waitress at the Leaky? Isn’t she a bit old for you?”

“You see? I don’t need to tell you anything. Someone finds out, the rumors start and then Wormtail spreads it all through school. She’s not old, it’s just that lighting in the place doesn’t suit her.”

She must be around her thirties, but why would Sirius worry about that by now. He has slept with most girls in school; he has to expand his hunting ground. Remus would be happy to say that it’s been long since he felt jealous of his long list of conquests. After all, they only get a half hour tumble and a dismissal afterwards and he wouldn’t change what he has with Sirius for something like that. If he repeats it constantly, it works almost every time. Emphasis on ‘almost’.

“Besides, fuck, we weren’t talking about me. We were talking about you.”

“You’ve said it. We _were_ , Sirius. Past tense.”

Issue settled. End of discussion. There is a clearing in the forest and honeysuckle grows close to it. Remus walks in that direction and sees the place far away when Sirius comes at it again. Holy Mary. The bastard shouts so that every living insect can hear him.

“McFynn!”

“What?”

Remus doesn’t believe it. They’ve been arguing for the past half hour and the arrogant, loutish, stupid, knuckleheaded, scatterbrained, cocky, insubstantial Sirius Black who believes himself to be a gift from the gods and who doesn’t understand how someone can resist fainting in his sublime and majestic presence, REALLY insists on playing “let’s find out which guy you like”. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so similar to the torture Remus imagines a Dementor kiss to be. _You want to know whom I like, you dumb dog? I like someone who right now I would love to strangle with my own hands._

“Liam McFynn! There you go, he’s a good match.”

“Sirius, let it be.”

It hurts. Seeing him in the forest, walking with those graceful strides, energetic, unattainable. It hurts. Sirius is masculine, and Remus’ knees shake in the mornings when he sees him looking out the window shirtless and with the first button of his jeans undone, scratching his stomach. Sirius has a perverse sensibility for mischief and the tact of a rhinoceros, a smile for every moment of the day, and the ability to come off as both punchable and kissable from one second to the next. Sirius hurts more than the moon and when he’s clueless, he hurts even more. He’s an asshole and it hurts, damn it, in every corner of his body.

“Come off it, Moony. There must be someone in school you like. Confess already.”

“It’s not your business if I like or don’t like someone,” he seems to slightly give up. “Who the fuck is McFynn?”

“From Hufflepuff, plays as keeper. You know who he is. You talked for two hours at the dance, that one time. It’s obvious he’s into dudes because I catch him looking at your ass.”

 _You talked for two hours at the dance._ Is it pathetic how hopeful those words make him? Sirius spends those dances chasing girls and even then has time to know what Remus is doing. Time to pay attention to him and, god, yes, it’s pathetic that Remus cares about that.

“He’s a Ravenclaw. He’s name is Ian McFinne and he likes James. He’s probably looking at him but he’s a bit cross eyed.”

“Really?”

“On his left eye. It’s a bit confusing when you talk to him.”

“He likes James more than me?”

Remus chooses not to answer. Sirius is dumb. He is also the only guy Remus likes, but he’s as dumb as can be.

 

 

**To feed the fire, you need fuel**

The book was found and memorized by Peter. _Basic manual for motorbikes._ It’s a muggle book they found in Diagon Alley thanks to the chimney in the common room, months of spellwork, and smuggled floo powder. He has studied it in depth and Sirius has managed – or at least he believes he has – to put every piece in its place. For the last three days, however, the bike makes no sound, doesn’t move, doesn’t start. After seven hours of taking out and putting back in every screw and every line, Sirius takes out a cigarette and contemplates romantic ways to commit suicide. Sitting beside him in the stable, Peter still thinks there must be a way to make it work.

Remus walks in to see if it’s time for a break only to find them tired and desperate. Sirius looks at him through disheveled hair, sweating grease.

“We think she’s dead, Moony.”

“Amen,” says Peter.

Remus has no clue about mechanics, the closest thing he has ever seen to an engine is his grandfather’s tractor. Well, his father had a small car that would puff and run slowly and would spend more time in the garage than on the road. Remus saw more than once how the tires were replaced but he can’t tell the fan belt from the spark plugs. Even so, compared to the two daft idiots he has in front of him anyone would say he’s an expert in muggle mechanics.

“Your potion is lacking some magic powder, lads.”

When they look at him with sullen faces it’s like he’s talking gibberish, Remus gives a couple of taps to the gas tank.

“Have either of you thought about putting some fuel in here?”

It’s like Sirius has been asleep and he immediately wakes up, he throws the cigarette away and jumps to his feet.

“What did you just say?”

“You have to put gasoline in the tank. At a gas station, preferably.”

“Pay attention, Wormtail,” says Sirius reproachfully. “Or I’ll have to find another mechanic.”

He puts on his leather jacket and checks his reflection in the rear-view mirror before walking out. The hair around his face gives him a pretentiously daring look, and for the millionth time Remus asks the gods in which he doesn’t believe why they had to give Sirius an ego the size of Great Britain and at the same time make him so handsome.

“Let’s go, kids, we’re going to look for gasoline.”

When they walk out, Sirius slaps Peter’s ass and winks at him. Peter gets uncomfortable and it’s precisely because of that that Sirius finds it funny. It’s the way he is, cocky, intolerable, pretentious, irritable, irresistible. Nothing more than taking the piss, of course. Remus is used to seeing how he relates by touching and fondling whoever is in front of him. Everyone, of course, except for Remus, whom he respects too much.

“Lucky me.”

“What was that, Moony?”

“Nothing. Not important.”

 

 

**In Vino Veritas**

The Gryffindor boy’s bathroom.

All four of them are drunk.

James Potter. The most acclaimed seeker in the history of Hogwarts. The most popular boy in the school and one of the best students as well. Animagus during his free time. Plastered.

“I’ll tell you one thing. If Evans keeps kicking me to the curb, I’m gonna give a chance to that McFynn. It’s good to know I have options.”

Remus Lupin. An advantaged mind in his generation. Werewolf. Innate talent for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Drunk? Hopelessly.

“His name is McFinne, I’ve told you. And I’ll spread the word that you’re open to other options, James.”

Sirius Black. Descendant of a legendary lineage of witches and wizards. Sexual legend of the school. The student who has spent most time in the Headmaster’s office. A prodigy of Potions and Transfiguration. Undoubtedly pissed.

“If you’re gonna fool around with a guy, James, are you really gonna pick that Hufflepuf-”

“Ravenclaw,” Remus corrects.

 “-that Ravenclaw over one of us? Mate, that wounds me.” Sirius grabs the bottle like it were the road to hell and he didn’t want a return trip. He takes a long swing that flares up his eyes. “Low blow, my friend.”

The Firewhisky bottle moves to Peter’s hands, who coughs every time he attempts to take in as much as Sirius. James grabs it after him.

“It’s true,” he says though it sounds more like ‘stru’. “If I’m to have a boyfriend, you should have outmost priority.” He brings his hand over his heart, with exaggerated sorrow. The whisky awakens his most theatrical side. “I’m sorry, gentlemen.”

“Nah, it’s all the same,” Sirius argues. “You can fool around with that Slytherin or whatever he is.”

“Ravenclaw,” Remus, again.

“Whatever,” he catches the bottle from James, skipping Remus. “I’ll go out with Remus, we don’t need you.”

He doesn’t want to. Remus does not, he does not, he does NOT want. He knows it’s a joke and that, if he were flirting, Sirius would be flirting with James out of habit because it’s his primary method of relating with others. That’s why he doesn’t want to feel that flip flap of an electric storm in his stomach but the words are _I’ll go out with Remus_ and, damn it to hell, Merlin, he can’t help it. His stomach trembles.

“Hey! You would go out with Remus before going out with me?” James is insulted.

“I would go out with Snivellus before going out with you.”

“Yeah? Well I’ll have you know that you were the first in my list but now Remus is in that place.”

James has a list? Sirius is going out with Remus? _And now Dumbledore will ask me to be his date to the next dance._ They’ve drank way too much whisky. They’re just talking rubbish, and Sirius goes with it.

“Dream on, Potter. Remus would choose me.”

He must be dreaming. He must be hallucinating from the alcohol. He must be more drunk than usual because he comes out and now what? His friends are fighting over him? His heterosexual friends?

“Not true,” James turns to Remus, silently begging, completely drunk. “Choose me and I’ll make your homework for a year.”

Then it’s Peter who seems to be angry.

“No way. I would end up doing the homework for you two!”

The world goes blurry. The whisky fills everything with steam and the corners of the world turn into dangerous curves. Truly dangerous curves. It must be the drunkenness but Sirius gives him a once over through that hair that must be magically altered to make him look more attractive.

“Choose me,” he comes closer without standing up, moving his ass over the floor, lifting his pelvis lightly and tormenting Remus, “and we’ll ride on the bike.” Enigmatic, winding, he adds, “at the front or the back, Moony, your choice.”

Remus’ mind can only conjure up two words. Just two. But he doesn’t want to admit it, he doesn’t want to think it, he doesn’t want it to be true.

“There’s no doubt,” he has to get away from those two words, pretend that everything is one big marauding joke, that it means nothing, that he’s not dying for Sirius every day and that every day it gets worse and more intense. “If I were coerced, blackmailed, threatened and forced to choose between all of you, I would pick Peter.”

Wormtail spits out firewhisky from his nose and mouth simultaneously. Remus keeps running away from those two words that suddenly seem to have puddled his lungs and make him feel dirty, low, unworthy, and sickened with desire. Half an hour later, the conversation is nothing more than embers of firewhisky, and a bad memory in the bottom of an empty bottle. They abandon the bathroom in which they’ve found refuge after hours. Peter follows James’ steps and when Remus is about to leave, he feels Sirius stopping him. There it is again. That hand on his chest, smoothly pushing him against the doorframe.

“Peter? You expect me to believe that?” his eyes shine so, he could set fire to the school and the whole of Rome after. He invades the space Remus keeps between himself and the rest of the world, his breath reeking of whisky and night escapades and infamous pranks. “You’re a shit, Remus.”

 _He’s flirting. He flirts with the whole world. But this is more than usual. It’s still a joke. It’s torture. He’s not serious._ Remus tries to break out of the mental fog. He clears his throat, holding Sirius’ gaze but it’s very difficult to front that indifference he has perfected like an art.

“If you had given me a better reason than a trip on the bike you would have had more chances, Black.”

Intentionally, he chooses a mocking tone. Joke, everything’s just a joke. But Sirius doesn’t look like he’s teasing. He steps closer, just a little closer to his face and from that distance Remus can see his tongue behind every syllable. So close.

“Who the fuck said anything about a trip? I said we would ride on the bike, Remus. No trip.”

There they are again. Those words he wants to shout. That which he wants to say to his supposed best friend, below the doorframe of a restroom. _Fuck me._ He can’t help it. _Fuck me, Sirius, now, please, don’t let me escape, I don’t want to resist. Fuck me._ Peter and James call out for them to start running before they get caught. Remus doesn’t feel the floor under his feet and he can’t get enough oxygen to his brain. The Hogwarts halls are the summit of the Himalaya and he’s afraid to fall from so high and shatter.

Sirius lays down on the bed next to his and Remus is afraid of not being able to sleep, of going into that other bed, of taking off his clothes and begging. _Fuck me like dogs do._

**Neither yes or no, but exactly the opposite**

The next morning, Remus is the first to go down for breakfast. He knows Lily is going over her essays in the Gryffindor table. He has to tell someone. He has to tell her. _I said we would ride the bike, Remus. No trip._ He has to tell her.

He tells her.

“Remus, he’s flirting with you.”

“You think so? I don’t. He does it with everyone. It’s his way of speaking.”

“Come on, Remus.”

“He talks like that with Malfoy, with Snape, even with Dumbledore. You think he flirts with Dumbledore too?”

“No, but I believe that deep down he likes Malfoy.”

“I don’t know why I tell you anything.”

They go on like that for fifteen minutes. Finally, Sirius arrives to the Gryffindor table with an epic hangover. Lily and Remus go silent immediately while Sirius takes out a self-made anti-hangover potion and pours it into his pumpkin juice. He waits for it to mix with his head against the table. Moaning.

“There’s light. There’s noise. There shouldn’t be any light or noise. Why is there light and noise, Remus?”

“Because it’s daytime.”

Sirius drinks the juice without breathing.

“What were you two talking about?

Remus and Lily say it at the same time.

“Nothing.”

 

**Animegui!**

The second full moon of the month has been named blue. It’s a night thirsty creature and when it hatches the sunset and begins its rise above the dark sky, it hears a familiar howl coming from the highest point of that hill in Hogsmeade that everyone calls the Shrieking Shack. Soon, the grounds surrounding the school are filled with noise. The first to run out is the wolf, because it’s in his nature to seek out the unexplored edges of the forest. Behind him, the others follow as always. First, the dog. Then, the stag. Lastly, the rat. Wolf, dog, stag, rat. The moon watches over from the heights, for the second time that month, and is serenaded by a symphony of barks and howls. It’s a noise that sounds like laughter.

When it’s high enough and its reflection against the lake surface looks like mother-of-pearl, the moon is hypnotized by itself. Beside her is the stag’s formidable silhouette, always a bit far from the wolf, always following it with its eyes. 

That night the only foreign sound is that of men.

“Wolf!”

The bang of the rifles.

“There it is!”

The shot that makes the lake’s serene surface shimmer.

“I got him!”

The moon needs not the howl of a bleeding wolf to know there’s truth in those words. She feels the bullet like a meteorite exploding on her dark side, forming an ominous crater. The wolf is suffering and along with him so is the moon, hiding behind dark clouds to lick her wounds, feeling herself diminish before her time. Below, in the forest, the dog’s teeth are sharp and blinding and the hunters run from its rage, leaving behind a gravely injured wolf among the rest of the beasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up in 2 weeks.


	4. Chapter 4: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work was written in the early 2000's, some details, characters and etc. from the later half of the book series(which had not been published yet at the time) may not appear or will be different than canon.

**Wormtail Warns**

It’s Peter who knocks on Dumbledore’s office at three in the morning. Sweaty, out of breath, eyes so big they seem about to fall out of his face, crying from exertion. He apologises for waking him up at such an hour, trying to emphasise his urgency.

“Hunters,” he breathes out. “They hurt the wolf, professor.”

It’s Peter who comes up with a story when Dumbledore, on his way to the infirmary, demands to know more details. _They were hunters, professor. It was Sirius who noticed it, you know? He was looking out the window; he couldn’t sleep and thought he heard gunshots from the forest. We all went out and saw he had been wounded._ Not a word about illegal animagi, Peter improvises as they walk and it’s fear that speaks through his mouth, threading a barely convincing story that in the middle of the night hides dozens of lies. _If Dumbledore finds out, he’ll expel us._ Fear is the fuel for his imagination.

Dumbledore hears only half of it; he’s more worried about Remus than about the circumstances of the shooting. When he’s in front of the infirmary door a staggering emotion hits him. At that doorway between life and death, it reeks of spilt innocence and fresh blood. There’s the stink of an uncertain future and Dumbledore feels the weight of the omens that point to a sinister destiny. The ancient professor knows that it’s not the right moment to think about that, in the same way he knows that the moment will arrive when avoiding it will be inevitable because the signs are increasingly abundant. Still, out of all the omens he has perceived, the one in front of him is the most unsettling.

Sirius Black, outcast, rebel without a cause and hopeless Casanova, has the dying body of a wolf in his arms. There is a trail of blood that starts from the gardens and ends where they stand. There’s blood on the silvery back of the wolf. Blood in the dilated eyes of the animal and blood on the shaken face of the Black boy, who looks down at the wolf and embraces him like both their lives were on the line.

“They tried to kill Remus, Professor.”

Soft and rough, his voice sounds angry and final. He doesn’t use the term wolf, like Peter, he says _Remus._

“It’s alright, son. We’ll take care of him.”

“They tried to kill Remus,” he repeats and the strength of Albus Dumbledore and James Potter and Peter Pettigrew is required for the young man to let go of the wolf, to agree to let the adults take care of the wounds.

Dumbledore personally extracts the bullet and his enchantments fill the room with a violet light and the smell of sulphur. Sirius refuses to leave and observes everything with a lost look in his eyes. _It’s only flesh,_ he murmurs while Dumbledore ponders on the nature of men and beasts. The whole night he stays awake, waiting for the moon to hide, for the wolf to regain its nature and measure the range of his wounds.

 

  

**Quid pro quo**

Three days later. Leaving Arithmancy. Lucius Malfoy can’t ignore the call for a good fight. Black and Potter have been brooding for days, with Pettigrew behind like a pest and Lupin in the infirmary with some mysterious affliction. The poison comes out of his mouth like air. The Slytherin serpents hiss.

“How’s it going, Black? I heard Lupin had a little accident. If he doesn’t make it, you’ll have to look for a new girlfriend.”

Lucius has no time to react or pull out his wand. Sirius’ wand is too quick, the curse rushing out before the last syllable comes out of Lucius’ mouth. He only has time to hear _quid pro quo_ before a pulsating pain hits his stomach with the force of lightning and he writhes with a violent grimace. Lucius puts his hands on his pain, trying to find the strength to breathe but it’s impossible. He falls to the floor on his knees and his initial yelp turns into a panicked shriek when he confirms there’s blood on his hands.

“Sirius!” he hears James Potter somewhere. He can’t open his eyes.

And as soon as it came, the pain disappears. Lucius’ hands and clothes are covered in blood but he touches his stomach under the shirt and there’s nothing. Not a wound. Not a scratch. Black is looking at him, wand still in hand.

“A warning, Malfoy,” his voice lacks the rage Lucius is used to and that unknown calmness makes him feel extremely cold. Real fear, for the first time in his life. “Next time, you’ll bleed from a real wound. And you can start praying for Remus to leave that infirmary in good health as soon as possible because starting now every drop of his blood is worth a litre of yours. If he falls wounded, I’ll make sure you never recover.”

It’s not a threat. Black has threatened him many times. Always raging, sick of fury. This is a whole other thing. Dark magic of the Black family, just below the surface, pushing all the Gryffindor down. This is darkness. Something inside Lucius twists with pleasure, in spite of his humiliation.

“One day I’ll make you pay for everything, Black.”

“Whenever you want.”

James and Peter walk with him to the infirmary. On the bed at the far end of the room, three days after his insides were pierced by gunpowder, Remus still sleeps.

 

 

**Delirium Remus**

Three days of fever and hallucinations. Remus dreams of shapeless forms, hears barking and feels something tearing into his stomach that leaves him bleeding out. Murderous jaws that belong to a dog but may be gunpowder, hate, or death. He stirs in sweaty sheets, awake, asleep, suffering. In the school everyone asks what’s happening and why a wild wailing seems to travel through the limestone walls.

When Remus is in pain, he howls.

 

 

**To see the dawn is enough**

On the fourth day, with his throat so dry that it burns and the sensation of having a bleeding sore in his stomach, Remus opens his eyes. He finds it hard to recognise the place. The infirmary with the beds in two rows, the smell of clean sheets and healing herbs. It’s familiar scenery but it’s the first time he comes to himself after such deep lethargy and he feels like he’s coming back from the dead, from outside of his body. He doesn’t remember what brought him there but – 

Lie.

He opens his eyes, feels his heart accelerate.

He remembers everything.

Suddenly.

_Wolf! Smell of people. Hunters. The mouth of a gun. Running. The burning pain. The smell of his own blood. Sirius’ barking. A dog licking his wound. Almost unconscious. Sirius’ tongue inside his body. By the bullet. But deeper._

And then nothing.

Until now.

By the night table, with his head on the bed. There he is. Sirius.

With all the hair spread out in uneven locks, black as a flock of ravens on white sheets. Remus observes him and time stretches so that he can revel in him He may never obtain from Sirius Black everything that he wants but he gets more than he could ever wish for. Remus doesn’t know what stings more, the bullet wound or the memory of Sirius’ tongue inside his flesh.

“Hey, fleabag, wake up.”

Sirius has licked him where no one ever has, except for the moon. When he opens his eyes, shakes his head and yawns like an animal waking up, Remus curses himself for not having a magic camera to capture him forever. Like that. Half asleep, half awake. Stretching and smiling when he sees that it’s taken him three days but he has finally returned.

“Fuck, Moony. It’s taken you long enough. Aren’t you a bit weak for a werewolf?”

“It’s because I’m a queer werewolf.”

“Damn. So the rumours are true,” the same jokes, and Sirius conceals with notable skill the deep affection that ends up coming out in every word. What he cannot say he shows in the dark circles under his eyes, the wrinkles on his clothes, the tiredness that makes his body sluggish. “Thought only a silver bullet could kill you?”

“Well, I’m not dead am I?”

 “No,” this time he doesn’t joke. “You’re not dead.”

His tone is so grave that Remus has two options. Break into tears and kiss him as if he really were dying or make a joke. He chooses the option for cowards instead of the one for dying men and heroes.

“I knew this didn’t look like heaven. You’re too ugly to be an angel. And I don’t see your wings.”

Jokes again. Known territory.

“Maybe I’m a demon, Lupin, and you’re in hell.”

“I don’t think so, no horns and no tail either.”

He regrets how it sounds as soon as he hears it. Tail. Sirius is incapable of letting that one pass.

“Horns are for James, but if you want to see the other just howl and we can arrange something,” his hands go to his belt and he makes as if he were about to unfasten it but stops at the last moment. “Given your current condition, I’m not sure you’re ready for such thrills.”

When Sirius makes him laugh the stupid wound palpitates, burns and barks. Damn it. The infirmary is filled with light and, by the looks of it, it must be early in the morning. Even though he knows the answer, he insists on knowing why Sirius is not in class if, according to his calculations, it must be Friday morning. Sirius proudly proclaims he’s managed to create a spectre of himself that is capable of sitting in silence during class while he can go where he pleases. It’s only a magical illusion but it’s good enough to fool the professors.

“He sits and doesn’t say a word? How will that fool anyone, Padfoot?”

“Bad jokes again. You’re cured.”

“Have you gone to class since I’ve been here?”

“Went to Arithmancy. Met with Malfoy, we talked, he confessed his undying love for me, we got engaged and swore on Merlin to love and respect each other but you know me. I cheated on him with Snape and now I’m looking to find my new path in life.”

“You could be a comedian. I’m dying of laughter.”

“It’s not laughter, you’re dying because someone shot you.”

“That would explain why it hurts so much.”

Fuck. The sensation of having a bullet inside him won’t go away. The pain grabs him by the balls and turns his insides. It’s soothing when Sirius puts his hand on his stomach and tempers all his pain. God. If only that hand would be there always.

“You should go to class, Sirius, or you’ll end up expelled.”

“If I can’t stay here, what does school matter?”

In moments like this one it’s an immeasurable injustice that kissing him is forbidden. Because Sirius is intense and barbaric and smooth and the medicine Remus needs to be cured. And it’s not fair to love him so much and there being rules for that love just because the idiot likes girls.

“How lovely,” Remus recognises James’ voice from the door, interrupting a silence that was beginning to be too heavy, slightly asphyxiating. “Padfoot, for the love of Merlin, why do you never talk to me like that?”

Sirius answers without looking at him but repressing a smile.

“Because I’m fucking your mum, Potter.”

James walks closer to the bed with that welcoming smile that makes Remus feels safe and at home.

“See how he treats me? Would it take a bullet to the stomach for him to give me a little love?”

Remus gives thanks the gods in which he doesn’t believe for being alive. He thanks the moon for allowing him to remain under its influence. He thanks Dumbledore’s magic. Thanks the spirits of the forest.

“You know I love you, asshole.”

Perhaps that’s what he most admires in Sirius; that he has an ego the size of the castle and is incapable of forming a phrase without curses but at the same time and even if he adds ‘asshole’ at the end, he is able to say it – you know I love you – without reserve, showing himself just as he is to them, giving them an intimate moment that would be worth more than the moon if you could measure love in liquid silver.

 

 

**Visiting**

Jazz fills the infirmary. It’s Sunday and line by line, minute by minute, the muggle gramophone wears away the vinyl. Remus has an extensive collection of records and they could be listening to Abbey Road but it’s much more fun to play Charlie Parker and attend Sirius’ whining recital against _that absurd and never changing music, backwards or forwards it always sounds the same. How the fuck can you tell the songs apart, Moony?_

“With the talent I have for listening that you lack in singing, Padfoot.”

More teasing: if he’s been given more drugs that make him so funny, or if he wants to share the same potions used in his wounds to see if the humour is contagious.

“The healer is cute, Sirius,” says Peter. “Maybe she won’t mind taking care of you too.”

“He’s never cared if they’re cute. Does no one remember the foreign exchange student from last year? Annie… what was her name, Peter?”

“Annies Horribilis” answers Peter, he can’t hide his laughter.

“Hey, you jealous little shits, do I go around telling you how ugly you are every morning?”

“In fact, you do.”

“Shut it, Remus, don’t protect them.”

Visiting hour is exactly that: ONE HOUR to visit but one healer is not enough to make them all leave when the time is over and since Remus’s health is consistent in its improvement, he doesn’t have a fever and danger has subsided, she lets them stay only _a little longer_ that soon turns into the whole morning. Close to lunch, Peter’s stomach gives out a scandalous roar and Sirius is still laughing- _someone swallowed the Gryffindor crest’s lion-_ when the doors open and Lily Evans fills the room with light.

“That crazy healer barely let me in to see you,” she says, before she realises four friends are looking at her while a gramophone is playing nonstop. “Ah, hi,” and just two seconds later, “I can come back later.”

They say “no” at the same time. Two voices but James sounds more agitated than Remus.

“No, really, we’re just leaving.”

“Are we?” asks Sirius and he reclines on his seat.

“To lunch?” says a hopeful Peter.

“No one needs to leave,” says Remus. “Though those who are hungry can do so, Peter.”

Lily thinks it over by the door. Stay or leave. The room is filled with guys who are looking at her. The atmosphere is intensely masculine and she feels like an intruder, but there’s something, an invitation in Remus’ eyes and something more intense, a plea – _please stay –_ in James Potter that she’s incapable of ignoring. She makes up her mind and closes the door. Sirius let’ her have the chair closest to Remus but she sits right on the edge of the bed, airy and light. Lily stares at Remus, as if she were carefully examining him to make sure the healer didn’t miss a thing. When she finally seems satisfied, she softly hugs him trying not to cause more harm. When she pulls away, all that can be heard is Charlie Parker.

“I’m fine, no big deal.”

“You’re certain?” her voice shakes.

“They said in a week I can be back in class.”

Sirius breaks the moment when he whispers _and he says it like he’d be happy to be back,_ as if he can’t quite believe it. _I’m worried about him,_ adds James in the same baffled tone. Lily allows herself to laugh and takes out a Honeydukes chocolate bar hidden in her tunic.

“Chocolate. In exchange for you to tell me what on earth happened to you.”

More than anyone in Hogwarts, Remus is used to keeping secrets but he knows that there comes a moment when keeping them hidden becomes an intolerable cruelty. There comes a moment when silence becomes a lie and there is no excuse.

“I was shot,” he tries to say it without dramatising.

“What?!” but the green storm in Lily’s eyes assures him he hasn’t quite succeeded.

“I’m a werewolf, Lily.”

It’s almost like her eyes are about to fall off.

“What?!”

 And Sirius, as always, has to say something. Remus never knows if it’s to avoid awkward silences or to add fuel to the fire.

“He also fancies blokes.”

“Repeat that,” Lily can’t quite believe it.

“I said he fancies blokes.”

The glare Lily gives him could strike down an ordinary man. Sirius barely feels it.

“I know that, Black.” Remus has Lily’s full attention. “Repeat the werewolf part.”

That morning Charlie Parker’s ‘The Bird’ plays while Remus Lupin, the wolf, tells his story and Lily feels like the dumbest person in the world. Because if all those ailments coinciding with the full moon weren’t enough to make her catch up, then the fact that they call him ‘Moony’ should have at least made her suspicious. She feels stupid but above it all she feels closer to Remus than ever. As if she finally understands a vital piece in the puzzle that is her best friend. When their time is up she says goodbye to Remus with a soft and almost ghostly kiss on the lips that leaves James speechless, between fascination and jealousy, and makes Sirius a little angry.

The dog starts barking before Lily can fully close the door.

“So you told Evans that you’re queer before you told me.”

“I’m afraid so. And it’s strange that I did that; given your sensibility, I should have come to you first.”

Sirius ignores the sarcasm.

“I can’t fucking believe it.”

James seems deflated.

“What if I tell her I like blokes too?”

Peter gives him a pat in the back but James doesn’t seem comforted. The image of Lily’s lips softly kissing Remus bothers him and he can’t leave it alone. Sirius almost feels the same but it’s not because he’s jealous, obviously. _Obviously._ It’s because, well, Remus told her he likes blokes before telling Sirius. Before Sirius! It’s like shitting on the marauder spirit, isn’t it? Who knows what Remus has told her that Sirius doesn’t know.

 

 

**Attention intruders: the dog bites**

If Sirius had been forced to stay two weeks in the infirmary, he probably would have gone crazy and would have begged to be taken to Azkaban to spend his summer vacation. He has no idea how Remus has been able to bear it, though he’s aware that the gramophone and that illicit chocolate have made it easier. Doesn’t matter how Remus has managed because it’s finally Friday and he’s supposed to be liberated. Sirius climbs the steps by three, whistling and singing and when he walks past the infirmary door he’s bursting with happiness.

“You’re a free man, Lupin!”

Free, but not alone. There’s a bloke that Sirius doesn’t know sitting on the chair where HE usually sits. Looking up at him. What is he doing looking at him and who is he?

“Hi, Sirius,” Remus is just about to finish packing his things; he moves slowly, grabbing his side to help himself. “I think you already know Daniel.”

Yes, of course he knows him. O’Neill, Slytherin. A Slytherin, for Merlin’s sake! His blood goes sour just looking at him, now standing there, as if he were a harmless idiot asking for an ass kicking so he can leave Sirius alone. And Remus. Whatever. It’s like Sirius walks into a surprise party and someone forgot the cake at home. His happiness collapses and his humour turns against him.

“Pleasure, Sirius,” they’ve never been introduced so the idiot offers his hand. A Slytherin hand! His ears stick out. Sirius doesn’t know why he dislikes him so, but he knows that when he doesn’t like someone at first then there’s not much to be done about it. He’s a dog of quick and strong instincts.

He shakes his hand out of courtesy. Out of courtesy and because Remus’s expression clearly says ‘behave, mutt’.

“You play defence, right?”

The brute nods.

“But not as well as you and James.”

How humble. How unlike a Slytherin of him. How charming.

“No, I know. I’ve seen you play.”

Remus’ expression turns severe. And when the guy finally leaves, mumbling something like “hope you feel better” and “I’ll be seeing you” and some other nonsense, Remus reprimands Sirius as if he were his mother. But without dark magic to punish him, of course.

“Does it take much from you to be nice? Do you believe everyone has to earn the privilege of your courtesy, Sirius?”

Blah, blah, blah. He doesn’t even listen.

“What was he doing here? A Slytherin!”

“He was conspiring to assassinate me and inherit my immense fortune.” Remus picks up his records and puts them in a bag. “He was visiting, Sirius. What do you think he was doing?”

He can think of many possibilities. Spying for Slytherin. Trying to discover why Remus was sick. Snitching to Sirius’ mother that his best friend is a werewolf. Trying to get Remus expelled. He could have been there for a million different motives. _For example, so he could make a pass at Remus._ Sirius doesn’t stop to think why all the options annoy him. Specially the last one. A Slytherin, he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it.

“His ears stick out. They remind me of my aunt Lissibeth.”

“Your aunt Lissibeth is the one you said reminds you of a hippogryph?”

“So you’ve noticed it too?”

“Leave the poor guy alone.”

Poor guy? _Yeah right._

“He’s Slytherin.”

“He’s nice.”

Nice? _Fucking hell._

“He’s Slytherin!”

Remus walks away and leaves the infirmary with short steps, trying to fit back in his own body. He has to listen to Sirius’ chatter along the whole way up to the tower, mistrusting every single person who hasn’t won his loyalty by blood and fire. Typical. Exhausting, but typical.

 

 

**Looking is not the same as seeing**

Remus crosses the gardens in his way to the greenhouse. It’s the first week of May and he still clings to oversized clothing that covers a body full of scars, scratches and dog bites. The day feels hot but he only allows himself to have the tie slightly loose. His time in the infirmary has left as keepsake another unexpected growth spurt and now more than ever he feels too tall, too clumsy, too thin and way too sickly.

From a dormitory window, above in the Gryffindor tower, Sirius can’t quite define it but he observes without knowing exactly why he does it. There’s still a few hundred meters left for Remus to reach Herbology class when he meets that Slytherin from the infirmary.

_What does that idiot want now?_

Sirius can’t hear them but they talk, that much is evident. For a long time. He can’t look away even though James, behind him, announces it’s time to head down for quidditch practice. James picks up his boots, his broom and says he’s ready but Sirius keeps on looking out the window.

“Have you seen that guy?”

James looks out. It takes him a few seconds to recognise him. O’Neill, he says. Really good player, he’s in their Care of Magical Creatures class. Slytherin, and though James hates to admit it, he doesn’t seem like a bad fellow. Seventh year.

“Malfoy and company make his life a living hell.”

The comment is made in an entirely casual manner but it awakens a vicious and almost carnivorous hunger in Sirius.

“Really? Why?”

“You know,” James makes a gesture but it’s obvious that Sirius, who pays as much attention to rumours as he does to his classes, doesn’t know. So he spells it out for him. “He’s into guys.”

It’s like a kick. A dull pain. In some soft place inside his chest. Just as soon as he hears it. He doesn’t know why. Sirius only knows that it angers him. Hurts a little. It’s an intense sensation. _So what now? Everyone likes blokes now or what?_

“Ah.”

“They say he got caught last year with one of those foreign players who visited for that exhibition game. Malfoy must think he’s a pest in his grand house. A shame for Slytherin and blah blah blah. You know how that is. Purity and all that shit.”

Sirius experiences a short but intense internal debate. All his family has Slytherin blood. Slytherin is everything he hates; everything he has to prove he is not. And if anything Slytherin crosses his way, Sirius chooses to hate it with a sudden fury. On the other side, if that poor idiot is in fact a target to Malfoy’s bile he can’t be all that bad. However it may be, it would be better if he left Remus alone. _He can still be a spy._

“I think he likes Remus,” says James suddenly, broom on hand, looking out the window.

“You think?” There it is again, that kick. That damn kick that hits in an indefinite place, and that’s beginning to coagulate and bruise.

“Yeah, I don’t know. They’ve been talking a lot,” says James. He keeps on looking at them for some time. They don’t seem to be doing anything special, apart from talking, Merlin knows what about. After a while, the Slytherin guy laughs and Remus laughs and James thinks that gives hope to his argument. “You see? Do you see that? Ha ha,” he says imitating a voice that doesn’t belong to anyone but he pretends it belongs to that guy. “Look how I laugh, it’s because I want to kiss your lips, Remus.” He changes his voice, trying to imitate his friend as well. “Oh, excellent, kiss me.” He seems very satisfied with himself. “What do you think?”

“That your Remus impression is pathetic.”

James hits him affectionately on the arm and reminds him it’s time for practice.

“I’m happy for him,” he adds. “It’s not good for him to be alone.”

He walks away from the window but Sirius stays, looking at Remus as he says goodbye and the other guy walks away.

“Don’t fuck around. He’s got us.”

“It’s not the same, idiot. You and I will always be behind him when he needs it but, you know, not the way he likes.”

_Very funny, Potter._

The pain remains, even throughout practice. During his shower, in the changing rooms, he decides James is wrong and that he is right. No matter how you look at it, the idea of Remus with a Slytherin is intolerable.

 

 

**Bark all you want but don’t touch my hair**

Lily is in the library, searching information for an essay on vampirism. She takes out a volume especially thick from the shelf in front of her and there he is, on the other side, staring at her and not entirely with academic intentions. Sirius Black.

“How’s it going, Evans?”

“It’s the first time I see you in the library, Black. Are you lost?”

“I was looking for you.”

He was looking for her? This can’t be good. Not good at all.

“Make your case.”

“It’s about James.”

Definitely not good.

“Then you should talk to him.”

“I have. I’ve tried to convince him that this agonising pining for you is stupid and degrading. I’ve told him that there’s plenty of girls around who, frankly, ardently wish to spend a fun time with a Quidditch legend but he’s stubborn. Lily this, Lily that, and Evans here and Evans over there, so, really, why don’t you give him a chance? I don’t say this for him, you know? It’s really for me. If you don’t go out with him and I have to keep listening to his whining, I will have to sever my ears so I can get some rest and—”

What a load of rubbish.

“Why are you really here, Sirius?”

He gives up.

“Do you know that O’Neill, from Slytherin? All he does is follow Remus around recently. Ugly looking bloke.”

Lily nods _though the guy can in no way be described as ugly._ Sirius, who looks around to be certain there’s no one close by, turns secretive.

“What do you know about him exactly?”

She narrows her eyes at him, puts the book back and opts to ignore him. But she knows that he’s stubborn like a caged animal and Remus has told her that when Sirius is like that there’s no reasoning with him. The interrogation goes on for a while. If the guy can be trusted, if she knows who his friends are, and since when is that guy so interested in anything Remus, and what about house rivalries, and a thousand other stupidities that Lily would prefer never to have heard. 

“Am I the only one of Remus’ friends who thinks it’s alarming that he likes a Slytherin?”

Lily knows she shouldn’t say a thing, that it’s well deserved for Sirius to suffer _something_ in trade for everything that Remus suffers but she’s at her wit’s end. Remus can say whatever he wants and call it “disproportionate and overprotective instinct” and Sirius can also say whatever he wants and argue that he only wants to protect one of his best friends from possible Slytherin spies and other evils. However, for Lily it is all much more clear and simple.

_Men. There’s not one that isn’t clueless._

“Look, Remus isn’t into him, alright? So stop worrying about the guy’s intention’s because he won’t get anywhere. And now, if you don’t mind, and even if you do, I have to study.”

She walks to one of the tables, determined to finish her work without further distractions. Sirius sits in front of her. _Please don’t._

“So he doesn’t like him, eh?”

“No,” she tries to be short. Blunt.

“And say, since you talk so much to him, who does he like?”

He’s exasperating.

“You want me to be honest?”

“Completely.”

“Absolutely sincere?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, to be absolutely and completely honest, I don’t understand how Remus can stand you or Potter.”

She walks away without looking back, leaving Sirius and his protests hanging.

 

 

**What they don’t know**

When Sirius walks by, the younger girls blush. The female professors reprimand him time and time again but when Sirius apologises and talks to them and pretends a certain shameless mortification while saying “I’m really sorry, professor, I’m beyond redemption,” even McGonagall goes a little soft and lets him walk away with a minor punishment and a ‘don’t let it happen again, Black’. The girls their age are divided in two categories. The ones that have already messed around with him and hate him because he never paid them attention again and the ones who still believe he’s Merlin incarnate. When Sirius wants to get free beer in Hogsmead and the waitresses ask if he’s underage he only has to get close to them, leaning on the bar, and say anything – _old enough to know what I like-_ with that animalistic intensity he gives off.

Sirius is what motivates them to skip classes, disobey their mothers, leave their boyfriends. Sirius is the attraction of the dark side, the promise of an unforgettable night, rebellion in the flesh, the spirit of bad intentions. The majority can’t resist and many of the ones who say they’re immune because of mere pride recognise, even if it’s only at night and in whispers, that something vibrates inside them when Sirius strides through the hallways as if he were the king of the world. Or when he smokes in the common room with his feet on the table, looking at all the girls who walk by, with the punisher pose that only a few chosen ones can pull off. Girls in general die for one Sirius Black and Remus thinks they’re lucky because they don’t have to tolerate the most sublime tortures. Oh, no, those are reserved exclusively for him. Because they’re friends, of course, and between friends there’s intimate moments.

Every morning when Remus opens his eyes Sirius is already awake. He’s a chronic insomniac and is morally against sleeping more than four hours. Generally, he’s reading on his bed or finishing the homework he was supposed to have finished the day before. Half naked, of course, because, unlike the classrooms and the halls, the dormitories are hot. On the other side, who would want to cover their body if they had _that_ body? The muscles in his abdomen are a product of quidditch and gracious genes. They remind Remus of muggle chocolate bars. In the mornings Sirius always walks around in his underwear or with his pyjama bottoms and he must be the only British person who seems to have a medium tan all year round. When he abandons his bed, he leaves the sheets wrinkled and six days out of the week – Remus has calculated it down to the dot – there’s a visible bulge under his clothing. An unmistakable sign that he hasn’t exactly been dreaming about Dumbledore.

Remus _hates_ that his mouth waters just looking at him and hates that Sirius shows off without pretending to show off. He hates the grace he has in his own body, the easiness with which he goes into the shower after a practice and he stays naked in front of him, in front of James and Peter and whomever could be there and he just throws his pants and shirt to a corner. Sirius can recall the details of a game without covering himself and Remus has seen him verbally torture Severus Snape without a stitch on him.

He’s indecent and obstinate, but he’s sexy, fuck, he’s so sexy even the female house elves give him the eye when he gets hungry at night and drags Remus to the kitchens. He sits on a table full of pans and mysterious utensils, dressed in a t-shirt and worn out jeans with the first button undone. He scratches his stomach, lifting his shirt a little and lets out that sounds _mmmmm_ while he eats pumpkin pie with both hands. He moans and declares that _this pie is a bloody delicacy_ and also _I think I’m coming_ while he keeps doing that guttural sound that fills the kitchen. Remus is forced to make a superhuman effort to restrain himself because he feels like rubbing against that table in search of some form of relief.

The girls who sigh over Sirius? They are LUCKY to not have to go through those things.

Sometimes Remus envies them. Other times, Sirius and James shower and Remus watches them as he dresses. They talk about the best plays of a game and Sirius takes some water in his mouth and sprays it like a hose and Remus knows he wouldn’t change being so close to him for all the gold in Gringotts.

  

 

**Nocturnal activities**

Everyone does it. In the dark, or while taking a bath or a shower. If possible, when dorm mates are asleep. But it’s not always easy because if everyone would wait till the others were asleep they’d end up with an erection the size of Gryffindor tower at three in the morning and finding no release. So more than once, it must be done quietly, being careful that the one on the next bed doesn’t notice. But it’s difficult to wank in peace, without bothering anyone, thinking of that one girl when you’re James Potter and your best friend waits until that final moment, hears you suppressing a moan and yells, with the sole purpose of messing with you:

“Yes, Lily, just like that, God!”

What's worst is that he's still feeling his orgasm when he registers the annoying voice.

“You’re a douche, Sirius. I swear.”

“Do you solemnly swear?” He asks. Mocking.

James puts it back in his pants and throws a pillow at Sirius’ bed with all his might. The immediate result is that Sirius has a fit of laughter and James ends up trying to choke him with the pillow. He straddles him and Sirius’ barking laughter wakes up the other two in the dormitory. Sirius grabs him and succeeds in turning them while yelling _Lily! Lily! Make a man out of me! Free my magic wand!_

If Remus didn’t live under the daily influence of a Black, he would yell at them to be quiet so he can sleep. But how can he fall back to sleep if he’s chased by the image of Sirius straddling another man, riding, moving his hips and, yes, it’s all a joke. But still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up in 2 weeks.
> 
> Thanks go to [Eugenia](http://earthhorsewoman.tumblr.com/) and [Stephanie](http://rainagainstmywindow.tumblr.com/) betaing this chapter and to [Isa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/notquite_somethingelse/pseuds/notquite_somethingelse) for her improvements on the translation.


	5. Chapter 4: Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work was written in the early 2000's, some details, characters and etc. from the later half of the book series(which had not been published yet at the time) may not appear or will be different than canon.

**There are doors that open without a key**

A prank, in certain occasions, needs astounding quantities of imagination. Innate talent for vandalism is necessary, and Sirius and James can always be trusted because, when it comes to playing the fool, they’re like twins separated at birth. Sometimes a prank requires a complex infrastructure, like that time Peter managed to make hundreds of muggle umbrellas fly to the top of the Great Hall, making everyone think it was still nighttime and they had gone back to bed. When it comes down to turning life at Hogwarts into one great mischief, every joker has a specialty.

Peter is relentless. Remus is imagination at its boiling point. James can smell a good prank from miles. And Sirius is of invaluable help when it comes to finding things. Especially when girls are involved.

“Lumos!”

Remus grabs the map, James and Peter watch from behind him. It’s silent and dark in the Gryffindor common room. Some meters away from them, in a the hall one must walk to get to the tower, on the other side of the Fat Lady’s portrait, are a pair of figures onto whom they concentrate all their attention. Sirius Black and Hanna Blair. She’s a seventh year, first of her class, quidditch player and Hufflepuff prefect. A model of perfection with an impeccable record and a known aversion for breaking the rules. Remus remembers perfectly that she was Sirius’ date for the Christmas ball in fourth year. He also remembers that Sirius ended up with one her best friends by the end of the night and a colossal and public slap to the face after. Since then, no one in Hogwarts has seen Hannah speak a word to Sirius and he sometimes says that slap still hurts.

“This is impossible,” assures Peter. “She hates him.”

“Shhh,” orders Remus, focused on the variations in the map.

Sirius’ figure in the map walks behind the girl for about two minutes. She walks several steps ahead of him, presumably doing a round and or ignoring him. At the corner that leads to the staircases, Hannah’s figure stops and Sirius’ steps right in front of her.

“I don’t believe it,” and James does in fact sound incredulous.

“Shhh,” orders Remus again.

Five minutes, maybe less and the two figures back into the wall. The steps that indicate their progress stumble backwards and forwards and they’re so close that it’s hard to say who is who. James murmurs _you’ve got to be fucking kidding me_ right on Remus’ ear.

“What in hell has he told her?” asks Peter.

It’s better not to know. Remus still remembers last year. He had been under the invisibility cloak in their dormitory so he could study without being bothered, resting on his bed, when Sirius and that seventh year redhead whose name he prefers to forget had come through the door. He had to listen to ten minutes of kissing and groping before he managed to get out without alerting anyone of his presence. What he saw was not engraved in his mind as much as what he heard. He has almost forgotten her weak protests. _Sirius, I have to go. I’m not supposed to be here. McGonagall will find us._ What he can’t quite make himself forget is Sirius while he kissed her neck and softly untucked her shirt. _If you can walk away, then you’re stronger than I am._ He had licked her ears. _But if you stay I have to get you out of this shirt._ He had slid his hand under her bra. _I’ve thought all day of what your face would look like when I did this._ And then that hand had been between her legs. _Don’t go and let me do you with my tongue._ She had made no attempts to get to the door but Remus had and he had taken a deep breath once outside. Unhappier than ever and more turned on than he had been in all his existence.

He has more or less that same sensation now, when Sirius’ and Hannah’s names seem to be magically glued together.

“Shit. Look!”

The map says McGonagall. Not more than ten meters away in the adjoining hall. Hannah must have a better ear because her figure disappears first, hidden behind a tapestry. Sirius doesn’t have the same luck and his steps cross with the professor’s. Less than three minutes later the portrait opens and the marauders – sans Sirius – pretend to be playing chess or reading in the common room.

“You’re perfectly aware, Mr. Black, that lurking in the castle after hours is strictly forbidden.”

Sirius doesn’t say a thing, but he nods. He’s well versed on the good boy pretence.

“I hope that your silence, young man, is an indication that you understand and this won’t be happening again.”

Sirius nods a second time and such a silent acceptance is strikingly odd in him. When McGonagall leaves, Sirius makes sure she’s truly gone before he opens his mouth. Or, more accurately, he opens his lips a little and lets a key fall from them, covered in his own saliva.

“What did I tell you?”

“Sirius, really,” James seems as admiring as Peter. “I bow to you.”

Sirius cleans the key against his uniform, satisfied like a cat after a successful hunt.

“You can suck my cock while you’re at it, Prongs.”

He messes James’ hair as he drops the key on the chess table.

“And now, gents, if you’ll excuse me I have a problem that demands a prompt resolution.” He walks towards the bathroom with purpose. “Fuck. McGonagall could have waited another five minutes,” he whines.

That night they don’t sleep. They’re much too entertained until four in the morning using the key to go into the girl’s restrooms and filling with soap all bath tubs, showers and faucets so that when the water starts being used at first hour of the morning the halls will be filled with bubbles. When they’re in their beds, Remus still can’t sleep because it’s hard to fall asleep when he has the image of Sirius groping a girl in the map and Sirius in their dormitory promising oral sex to another girl and Sirius in the boys’ bathroom, masturbating without reserve not ten meters away from him. 

 

 

**Detention**

“Remind me again why we are in detention, Potter.”

James talks through his teeth, not looking at Sirius. They have to shine all the big silver pans that are used to serve the stew on Halloween. They have to do it – that’s their punishment – without magic and without talking privileges. A whole week polishing the silver.

“Because I’m an idiot.”

“That’s right. Because you’re an idiot and also…”

“And a blithering fool.”

“Very good, Potter. I see you’ve understood. Though I’m not certain you’re just saying it, you know? I wouldn’t like that. Say it again but with more enthusiasm.”

Peter, in bed with a fever, is the only one who got away. The other three have to rub and polish and shine all the silver in Hogwarts under Filch’s irascible glares. And all this because when they had been walking back from an unauthorised Hogsmeade visit, under the invisibility cloak, James had had the marvellous idea of making a little stop in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and had written GO OUT WITH ME, EVANS with Zonkos permanent ink on the blackboard.

“It wasn’t my fault that we got caught, Padfoot.”

“Excuse me? It was you who looked at the map and said no one was around. NO ONE, that’s what you said.”

“I got distracted for a few seconds. I wanted the letters to be just right.”

“Well one second was enough for Snivellus to see us and split. So it’s your fault. And now say the idiot and blithering fool parts again but this time like you mean it.”

“You know what, Padfoot? You’re nicer on four legs. You should think about making that change permanent.”

“That doesn’t sound like remorse, Bambi.”

James stops shining the silver for a second.

“Remus, tell him to stop. I’ve bled enough.”

“Not going there, I’m enjoying this argument too much.”

 

 

**Nocturnal call**

It’s two in the morning and Sirius feels someone shaking him from a dream that he can’t quite fully remember. Something about his mother apparating to Hogsmeade to chase him. He half opens his eyes. It’s dark. He makes out Remus’ scent and his voice, barely audible, repeating his name.

“Sirius, I need to borrow your bike.”

He sits on the bed, still bleary eyed.

“The bike?” The same bike Remus rants against because it’s too dangerous and absurd and blah blah blah? “What did you smoke, Lupin?”

“Sirius,” he repeats, a gentle urgency in his voice. “I need to borrow your bike. Now. I need to get to London.”

There’s dramatic seriousness in Remus. All at once, Sirius feels no sleep or tiredness left in him. Under the dim night light, he makes out Remus’ familiar features. The straw coloured hair, the long line of his nose, his lower lip slightly more prominent, the usually serene eyes tonight are red and swept up in pain.

“I’ll take you.”

For once, Remus doesn’t argue with him. He waits in silence for Sirius to dress and explains, with short phrases, as they walk to the Shrieking Shack along one of the castle’s intricate passageways.

_Dumbledore’s told me. She’s was very sick._

**Things that Remus doesn’t say**

Remus never talks about his family. Truth be told, Remus doesn’t talk about many things and Sirius is just starting to realise that even though they’ve been cohabiting for almost seven years in the same school and in the same house. _I’m not very sharp for a dog, definitely wouldn’t cut it as a police dog._ The only thing Sirius knows about the Lupins is that Remus’ dad was muggle-born and that he died before Remus had started Hogwarts. Sirius has never asked him about his mother and he didn’t even know Remus had a grandmother or that she had been sick. _My father’s mother,_ explains Remus. _She made the best almond and cinnamon pie in England._ Sirius didn’t know. He also didn’t know that in muggle funerals people attended a church and listened to a man dressed in black. Everything is a little strange to him but he says nothing because Remus’ pain is so intense it can be felt as cast off waves that are almost physical. The only thing Sirius wants is to ask what he can do for him and not to be in that absurd place with stained glass, shaking strangers’ hands and eating gigantic cookies that stick to the roof of his mouth.

At the cemetery, a couple of people come up to Remus and he greets them and they tell him that his grandma was very old and Sirius thinks it’s mayor nonsense. All grandmothers are old, aren’t they? Well, his is stuck in a portrait at home but she’s wrinkled like cigarette paper and she barely moves, so she must be old.

When it’s all over, Remus stands by the grave looking down at the headstone without saying a word. Sirius can smell his pain as an animal and he thinks it’s eased a little, now that they’re alone. He still doesn’t know what to say. Though it’s costing him to not say a thing. It’s spring and in that Bath cemetery, in Avon county, the flowers are blooming with vibrant colours.

“I would spend the summer with her,” says Remus.

“I thought you spent the summer with your mother.”

Remus’ half smile is the saddest Sirius has ever seen. He wants to do something. Anything. Feeling helpless horrifies him. When the moon comes out and Remus begs for mercy, Sirius holds him by the chest and stays with him until the last moment and, damn it all to hell, he would like to do the same now. Hold him, get under his skin, extract some of his pain and carry it for him so it’s more bearable.

“My mother…” Remus doesn’t finish. “Do you want to meet my mother?”

He hesitates. For a second. _Please._ There’s too many unknowns when it comes to Remus and in that muggle cemetery the desire to know them all and breathe in their perfume becomes irresistible. He feels that thing in his chest again, that pain that now is more of a sigh than a kick.

“I would love to, Moony.”

 

 

**Aurora***

It’s not what he expects. Remus warns him but it’s not what he expects. To begin with, muggle hospitals smell weird. It’s not like St. Mungos, where it smells like sage and rosemary and healing herbs. Muggle Hospitals stink like the potions the elves of No. 12 Grimmauld Place use to scrub the floors. Or worse. It reeks of sickness and Sirius’ extremely sensitive sense of smell feels assaulted. He wonders how people can heal with such an offensive stench. He wonders what he was expecting of Remus’ mother but comes up blank.

She lays on the bed. There’s tubes stuck to her arms and she’s connected to a machine that beeps. She seems to sleep but it doesn’t feel that way, the presence of her spirit is almost indiscernible in the room.

“Muggles call it being in a comma.”

A comma. Two words. Nothing else. But they make Sirius shiver. She’s been that way for almost two years and Remus explains it with affection but without affectations because Remus is that way and Sirius feels like crying. It’s strange because he never feels like crying. He swallows to get rid of that knot that’s just formed in his throat and clears his throat when Remus walks closer to the bed, talking about his mother’s accident and about some sort of ball of blood in her brain.

“Some doctors believe even like this she can hear us and knows what’s happening.”

Sirius doesn’t know if he can walk towards the bed. He feels slight tremors throughout his body. He feels too big, clumsy and dumb and out of place. Everything in the room seems fragile and too clean for him. Remus says _hi, mother_ and Sirius realises that in his life _mother_ is a word related to disdain and rage but that there are other universes barely a meter away from him, other hearts in which _mother_ can be incorruptible affection, the most generous form of love, tenderness at its purest state.

Remus sits by the bed, by the thin woman with blonde but greying hair whose life feels present but absent and he talks to her as if they had seen each other only five minutes before and had talked over breakfast.

“I came to visit old grandma,” he lies, “and I brought a friend.”

 _Friend_. That word has never sounded more valuable. It’s a privilege. Remus showing this to him is an honour. A part of him as valuable as crystal and unbreakable as diamonds.

“Mum, this is Sirius. Remember when I used to tell you about all those detentions that weren’t my fault? Sirius was behind all of them.”

He tries to make his voice as steady as he can, walking closer to the bed.

“Sometimes it’s all James’ fault, Mrs. Lupin. I swear it.”

“Her name is Aurora,” Remus’ voice breaks just at the last syllable. “I suppose now she’s all the family I have.”

Remus looks up. He’s fighting on the verge of tears, with his nose gone red and shaking lips. And there’s no heart big enough to take in all that Sirius feels at that moment. He feels himself expand, feels himself soaked in Remus’ pain. He feels himself tansform with the full moon into a different man and when Remus sobs, Sirius falls to his knees and prays to stay strong in a hug that dissolves time and flesh with monstrous intensity.

“I’m here,” he’s not certain, but he thinks he might be crying. Maybe it’s because of life’s injustices, because there are mothers that hate and are alive and mothers who love and can’t open their eyes and if someone had to suffer if should be him, damn it, and not Remus. His mother should suffer and not the mother of a werewolf who cries as if his skin was raw. “I’m your family, Remus. I’m here.” Strong, stronger, Sirius hugs him with the force of an earthquake and he doesn’t know what happens exactly but that pain in his chest persists, it howls, and demands something but he doesn’t know what.

They leave the hospital and don’t feel like talking, numbed after crying.

Sirius has never felt closer to Remus. Never felt closer to anyone, really. And it’s strange, but at the same time he feels further away, like there’s a long way to go still. Strange. Loony. _What the shit is this._ It must be because of all that thinking of his mother. _That must be it._

The sun is setting and he suddenly feels that Aurora is a pretty name for the mother of a werewolf.

 

 

**London calling**

Before returning to school, they eat at a steak house in Oxford St. and Remus confesses he’s only been to London when visiting the hospital or when buying his school books but never in Covent Garden on a Sunday morning and not once to Candem Town to buy muggle knickknacks at the market and he has never gone through the Thames on a boat nor walked into a pub to watch a Manchester game and he wouldn’t recognise a punk on the street. In summary, Remus only knows what Sirius calls the _dreary-as-fuck London._

 “And you can’t do it like that, Moony. Anyone could think you’re the typical pretentious nerd. You have to let your hair down.”

“I don’t even have long hair.”

Exams are around the corner and they must return to school because, amongst other things, James and Peter must be wondering where in the fuck they could be.

“James is gonna think I’m hitting it off with you,” says Sirius.

“I wouldn’t want to cause trouble in your marriage, but in your defence you could say he was having a good time with Peter.”  

Nonetheless, Sirius promises to return to London and burn down the city. He makes plans. Which basically consist on passing through his mother’s house when no one could be around, slip out some money and spending it in beer and tattoos and girls. Remus just watches him, amused.

“Of course that would be your idea of a good time, Padfoot.”

“Well, girls, boys,” he makes a twirling gesture with his hand. Sirius’ wild gesticulations are part of that excessive theatrics that are his alone. “Makes no difference, it’s all the same, Remus.”

They’re entering into muddy terrain and Remus is aware that if they follow that path he will end up regretting it. After all, it’s not a good idea to talk about your sexual life (or lack thereof, to be precise) when the object of your desire is right in front of you. But they’re in London, his stomach is full and he has suffered through an emotional, heartrending night. He needs frivolous conversation. He needs a battle of wits with an obstinate dog. He needs Sirius to rescue him.

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, it’s not the same, Padfoot.”

Sirius leans in with his elbows on the table. Inquisitive.

“Are you sure you don’t like girls?”

_Right now I’m thinking I would like very much for you to unbutton your jeans while you look at me and bite your lip, Black, as if I were a cake you desperately want to eat._

“Very sure,” he says it with conviction. With much conviction.

“But, are you sure you’ve done it right?” Remus doesn’t answer but it seems that his silence is more than eloquent. “Wait a moment. You’ve never even done it with a girl!”

“A little louder, Padfoot. In Wales there’s an almost deaf old lady who didn’t quite hear you.”

Sirius at least has the decency to lower his voice so that the four waitresses and the twenty patrons in the place can look away. Sirius leans even more on the table, putting aside his plate of steak and bacon.

“Then you can’t know if you like them or not, Moony, seriously, believe me. You have to try.” Sirius licks his lips, as if he were preparing for a great feast and lowers his voice until Remus feels like he’s naked in a bed, with Sirius whispering in his ear. “Remus, listen well. The first time you put your hand under a girl’s shirt you have to wait until she sighs and kiss her only then, letting your tongue into her mouth slowly because if she returns the kiss, I swear, Remus, it’s the most incredible thing in the world. To feel her melting while you get hard. You can’t say you don’t like them until they kiss your ears or your neck or your cock, Remus. How are you to know if you don’t like girls if not one has sucked your cock, mate?”

Heat. Oh, merlin, fuck. So much heat in London. Remus evaporates. He melts. He switches places with that girl and Sirius’ imaginary hand under his shirt makes him want to scream “just do it”. _Eat me, drink me, touch me._ He has never wanted it with such intensity. Fuck. He feels Sirius’ lips everywhere but specially in that place that is now hard and not precisely because he’s been thinking of girls.

“Sirius,” he strains for his voice to sound normal, “have you ever done any of those things with a bloke?”

“What?” his eyes seem about to fall off. “No!”

No, of course, Sirius is too straight, too much of a womaniser for that.

“And according to your theory, how do you know you wouldn’t like it?”

He mumbles “well…” and “…shit, mate, that wasn’t… well because…” but he can’t manage to form a single phrase. For the first time, Remus has left him speechless. It’s a day for the history books that will be inscribed in London’s memory for centuries to come, amen.

They return to Hogwarts on the bike; by road as they leave the city, and in the sky once London is not more than silhouettes on the horizon. Remus puts his arms around Sirius as the wreck of a bike begins to ascend and Sirius feels way too confused to think about how nice it feels. The pain in his chest is starting to turn into a kind of itch.  

He’s still angry and he doesn’t why or with whom.

 

___

 

*  Aurora means dawn.

 


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This work was written in the early 2000's, some details, characters and etc. from the later half of the book series(which had not been published yet at the time) may not appear or will be different than canon.

**It isn’t fair**

During class, they always sit in the same row and they always hear the same complaints, from the professors or fellow students sitting nearby, when they start making a racket. Often, during the long Ancient Runes or Muggles Studies sessions, exploding laughter echoes in the classroom and the professor’s spontaneous reaction is in a loud but cutting tone.

“Mister Black! Silence or you’ll be expelled from my class!”

Sirius thinks it’s not fair, no sir. Because his laughter is not his own fault. It’s James’ fault, because of his curiosity about what Remus and Sirius did in London. He passes them notes with increasingly outrageous theories. _You’ve set stink bombs on Sirius’ house for his mum’s birthday. Sirius wanted to piss in Buckingham Palace…. You went to get a cage for Peter._ But above it all it’s because of Remus, who pretends to be the student of the year and, with that favourite child attitude, writes a note in response.

_Alright, James, you asked for it. Sirius took me to a concert, one thing lead to another and well by the end of it all I fucked Mick Jagger._

He gets the sermon, yes. But it’s Remus. It’s all Remus’ fault, because he never fails to make Sirius laugh.

 

 

**Musical intermission**

He climbs the steps by three, humming and whistling until he gets to the Fat Lady’s portrait, who makes eyes at him when Sirius tells her the password – custard with whipped cream! – and gives her one of his usual compliments. Something about how lovely he finds her this evening and how she should be called the Voluptuous Lady and nothing else. She lets him into the common room between blushing smiles while saying _what a cheeky young man_. On the other side of the portrait, Gryffindor awaits and as he climbs up the stairs Sirius can hear music from the muggle gramophone. He pulls out the flat package from under his tunic and he doesn’t have time to announce his surprise because Remus interrupts him without taking his eyes off his book.

“Don’t you dare change the record, Black.”

Sirius remains static for a second, record in hand.

“You don’t even know what it is!”

“No matter. I know your taste well enough, Padfoot.”

With a sad face, Sirius shows him the cover. It says “ _It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll_ ”.

“The Rolling Stones is the biggest thing that has happened to this country since Arthur made the table round.” He takes the record to his heart. “Mate, you’re a disgrace for everyone our age. Worse. You’re a disgrace for the United Kingdom.”

But Remus doesn’t yield because the gramophone, in the end, is his alone. And so Sirius goes against Remus’ taste in music and his record collection. He takes out the boxes from under the table and Remus tries to ignore him, concentrate on ‘ _Tropic of Capricorn’_ , and dismiss every sarcastic observation. Though he must confess, if only to himself, that Sirius’ anger over trivialities is very amusing.

“Have you noticed what all your records have in common? Let’s see,” he takes out ‘ _The Four Seasons’_. “Vivaldi,” he reads, “dead, if I’m not mistaken.” He takes out the next one, ‘ _La mamma Morta’_. “Donizzetti!” he exclaims. “Again, dead.” One by one he takes them out of the boxes. “Beethoven, dead. Mozart, totally dead and let’s not forget about the great Sebastian.”

“If you speak ill of Bach, I will escort you out of this dormitory by kicking your arse to the doorway, Black, I’m warning you.”

“Dead. All of them, mate! You’re not a music aficionado, Lupin, you’re a necrophiliac.”

“They may be dead, Padfoot, but their music makes us feel alive.”

He says it from the heart but all his seriousness dilutes when Sirius narrows his eyes at him.

“What a load of bollocks,” he says and only him, the idiot, is able to say something insulting without sounding insulting at all. “How come I didn’t notice you were gay before you told me?”

“Because you never notice a thing.”

Sirius examines the boxes one by one, sitting on the floor, filling the surface around him with records without holding back sarcastic comments on any of them. Every now and then he lets out a horrified scream.

“Joan Baez! That’s it. I refuse to stay in this dormitory another night!”

“That one’s Lily’s,” Remus explains.

Still with that record on hand, Sirius walks towards Remus’ bed. He crosses that short meter and a half on his knees, imploring. Remus could almost swear he’s going to stick out his tongue to lick his face.

“Lupin, please, just one time. It arrived from London by owl, exclusively for me. You can’t make me listen to jazz forever!”

“Do you realise how extremely, truly extremely, unbearable, you can be? Are you even remotely aware of that?”

“I am. It’s terrible. I don’t know how you can stand me.” He says it stiffly, as if he were giving a speech. “I’m sure that in your infinite patience you will be sanctified and people will venerate you and the coming generations will discuss about who was the better wizard, you or Merlin. Naturally, the answer would be Merlin but people will adore you to such a degree that they will start to doubt it,” he takes a breath and then adds. “And now, your Wolfiness, with your permission, can I bloody play Mick fucking Jagger?

There must be a way, somehow there must be a method to resist such idiocy. Someone, somewhere on earth, must be capable of not giving in to a kneeling Sirius Black, with a Joan Baez record on hand, and too much canine charm, but of course that person can’t be a Gryffindor. Remus agrees. But only under a non-negotiable condition. The Rolling Stones. One time. The entire damned album and then anything Remus likes. He doesn’t need to say it twice. Sirius runs to the gramophone and the Stones insist that _it’s only rock, only rock and roll!_ But it must not be just that to an anxious dog because Sirius bellows the lyrics and Remus has to hear him shout and jump on all the beds and his imitation of a rock star is so hilarious he should perform it on a London theatre every night. The tourists would rather go see him than Picadilly.

When the Stones go quiet, Sirius tries to flip the record over but Remus imposes his turn and Bach starts rolling. Sirius protests – _another dead man_ – because protesting is in his nature, but he falls into his bed, his hands cross under his head – _I’m gonna have to listen to it a few times to learn the lyrics –_ and the most surprising thing is that he listens. For a whole hour, from Vivaldi to Mozart, without insults, nor supposedly stinging comments. Just Sirius Black on his bed at Gryffindor tower, crossed legged, and that peace that is so unusual in him. It’s the first time that he’s in the dormitory without making a sound. In six years.

Must be true that music can tame a savage beast.

When Remus thinks he has tortured him enough with ‘that wordless music by dead people’, he’s ready to let Sirius have a turn and let him listen to _that sound made by disgruntled pipes._ As he does every day, Sirius surprises him. With a rare intensity and something in his voice that Remus has never heard that sounds a lot like calmness he says “no”.

“I want to listen to something that you really like.”

Remus chooses Billie Holiday almost without thinking – or without wanting to overthink it– trying not let his heart’s furious beating be heard. When it dawns on him that the first song is called “Let’s do it” it’s already too late. Billie starts singing while Remus feels he has some explaining to do if he doesn’t want his feelings to be so evident that even Sirius will know and interpret the song as an innuendo. _Why on hell and earth did I choose this?!_

“I can play something else if you want, it’s not…”

“Shhh, Moony,” interrupts Sirius. “Lie down and listen.”

“Lie down” he says, giving a pat to the space next to him on the bed. On his bed. By his side. If Remus had wanted to resist or disobey he wouldn’t even know where to begin. No big deal. It’s the kind of thing friends do. He sits on the bed first and then, well, Sirius has said “lie down”, therefore Remus has no other choice. He lies down softly, rests his head on his chest and he concentrates just on breathing evenly. When Sirius smiles, filled with peace, Scotland seems like the promised land. Billie sings and her words give inspiration to touch and to love because everyone does it, so _let’s do it,_ she insists, _let’s fall in love._ Sensual and physical, steamy and carnal, Billie sounds of jazz and midnight kisses.

“I’m surprised, Lupin,” Sirius’ voice is warmer than usual. “Maybe you’re not doomed to be the typical swot who listens to posh music. Maybe there’s hope for you after all.” Before Remus can ask what he’s on about, Sirius gives him the answer on his own. “I ask you to play something you like and you go and play a song about fucking, no less.”

Fucking. The damned bastard says fucking and it’s a word that has so much meaning. Fucking. But there’s few who are capable of saying it like Sirius does. Pornographic and sensual at the same time. Canine. Ravenous. Fucking.

“And to think you look like such a good boy, Lupin.”

“I have a wolf inside me, Sirius,” he tries hard not to pant. “Don’t forget that.”

“I never forget it.”

His intensity leaves Remus out of breath. _let’s do it,_ insists Billie, _let’s fall in love._

“Did you play this so I would make a pass at you, Moony?”

_Yes._

“Shut up, Black, and let me listen.”

_Do it, Sirius, damn it. Touch me in the same way you touch girls in the halls._

**Take a look under the surface**

In May, the full moon manifests itself with a bloodthirsty intensity. The wolf is ravenous, insatiable, parched, and the next morning Remus awakens sore, bruised, and lacking the strength to go to class, especially with his arms full of wounds. Lily notices the wounds during breakfast, when he grabs the milk, and she’s relentless as she tries to get him to try a potion that will help his arms scar faster and sooth his pain.

“Lily, I’m fine,” he protests.

“You’ll be better after trying the potion.”

There’s no point in arguing.

At noon, Sirius is reading his last finding on Remus’ muggle book collection. A curious thing called “The Metamorphosis” about a muggle that turns into a bug. He’s resting on his bed, skipping Divination as usual, and notices the smell of the healing potion before the door opens and Lily walks in followed by Remus. She has a jar in her hands and Remus a resigned expression painted on his face.

“Oi,” Sirius keeps a finger between the pages to not lose his spot. “Why the fuck can girls come to our dormitories and we can’t go into theirs?”

“Because the people who made this school,” answers Lily, “thought boys weren’t trustworthy enough and because, unfortunately, boys like you prove their argument.”

 _Too right, Evans._ One thing about James, he likes girls who are bold and who speak their mind. Sirius is starting to really like her, even if admitting it annoys him a little. Lily is as stubborn as a Black. She’s not satisfied until Remus lets her put her potion on his arms. The wounds are deep red, the skin looks irritated. Sirius has seen worse.

“Now I smell like St. Mungos, Lily. Happy?”

“You bet. Deliriously happy. Now shirt off.”

“Lily! Shouldn’t we kiss first?”

On the bed, Sirius tries to keep reading but they distract him, damn it. With their conversation and their jokes and all the touching. Because, it’s not like it matters or that it’s his business, but those two don’t stop touching. If he didn’t know Remus’ deal with girls, he could almost say they liked each other. _If I were Prongs I would be jealous._

“Just pretend I’m not here,” he says. “Do your thing”. He means it as a joke but his voice sounds slightly annoyed, as if he were vaguely angry. He can’t help it. He tries to get rid of it but that anger that surfaced in London is still there and he can’t understand it nor tame it.

“This smells like boiled radish,” Remus frowns.

“You live in this dormitory and the smell of a healing potion bothers you?” Lily can’t believe it.

There’s a rancid smell of humidity in the entire room.

“That would be Peter’s socks,” explains Remus.

“Merlin,” Lily huffs. “Smells like hippogriff dung.”

The two boys hum in agreement.

“Sirius thinks we should cut off his feet.”

“Only for sanitary reasons,” he clarifies. “Don’t go looking at me like that, Evans. If James were to ask him, young Peter would run off and do it himself.”

“Oi, you two,” she points at both of them, like a featured artist in a dance perfected over the years, “is there something in your food that makes you both so funny or is it a side effect of sniffing those socks?”

Sirius has never had a friend that was a girl. He has had guy friends and he has had girls but never friends that were girls. Didn’t know he could, if he thinks about it. He’s never been touched by a girl in the same way Lily is touching Remus. No girl has taken off his shirt in that manner, especially not before a previous exchange of body fluids. Generally, something more than just saliva. When a girl touches him, Sirius responds in the same way and leads to more, and in those cases, there’s no room for friendship. _But Remus doesn’t want to touch girls, mate, he wants to touch other guys._

Of course. Duh. Sometimes he still forgets.

Maybe that’s why it’s so strange for him to see them together. Maybe that’s why he feels like an intruder. Remus sits by the mirror, letting her take his shirt off softly, no hurried movements, subtly gritting his teeth when the touch of the clothing burns too much. In that moment, his teeth are visible. They’re strong and slightly canine.

“What about the bites?” Lily points to the neck.

The markings are still red. The skin didn’t rip, but the bite of half a dozen teeth is clearly seen. Sirius becomes more alert.

“What about them?”

“I didn’t ask you, Black.”

Of course not.

“Oh, I know,” he tries to blow it off and turns to the book.

Remus in his moony state is a beast who sometimes tries to go to Hogsmeade, following the smell of dead animals and lost excursionists. The wolf must be stopped and, sometimes, the only one who can stop him is a large dog with sharp fangs that bites down the wolf’s neck with enough strength to restrain him but without touching the muscle. But Lily doesn’t know this. No one knows. No one would understand. It’s a viscid secret, shared by wild beasts.

“Must have gotten in a fight with a dog,” explains Remus. Laconic, as always.

Under her breath, Lily murmurs _mongrel_ and _revolting_ and Sirius makes an effort not to be offended. _Say what you will, but the mongrel bites, beautiful._ He’s filled by the sudden wish to proclaim his ownership on the bite. That’s his bite! Furthermore. He too suffered some biting during the full moon and no one is treating him like that, with such care, as if he were made of glass. Lily helps Remus with the undershirt, pulling it up, his arms lifted, until his hair is a mess and he almost looks shy. _Time to find out if you only like blokes, Moony._

When Remus is down to his school trousers and a vulnerable expression on his features, Sirius understands his nervousness. His head is low not because he fancies Lily, but because he wants to avoid seeing his own reflection in the mirror. He doesn’t like looking at himself.

It’s difficult to understand why.

There’s a scar that crosses his entire back, one solid line. From a branch, probably. He has many others across his chest. Some are faint. Others still slowly healing. There’s one, slim and long, that’s starts on his right side, close to Remus’s last rib and continues down to his waist and keeps on going, under his trousers. Sirius doesn’t know where it ends.

_Not that it matters. Not my business._

Sirius also has scars. And several, thank you very much. But not as many as Remus, nor as deep. Yet Lily is not covering Sirius' scars with a mysterious potion that no longer reeks as she’s doing with Remus. She does so slowly and with infinite care. It must be strange to be treated in that manner. Of course that, in Remus’ case, it’s the only logical way to take care of him. When it’s all said and done, Remus is what’s most valuable in Gryffindor tower. His skin is pale like the moon. And all the spots that haven’t been broken, seem too virginal. Sirius knows those spots have never been touched by a girl. He wonders how many boys have touched them.

“Do they hurt a lot?” Lily’s voice is as soft as her hands has she spreads the potion.

“It’s the moon,” Remus sighs. “All her fault.”

They’re left speechless. Lily and Sirius. She in front of the mirror, with the ointment on her hands and Remus’ freckled back in front of her. And Sirius on the bed, unable to move. Neither of them had heard it before. That sore rage, a howling desperation in Remus’ nasal voice. Lily looks at him through the mirror but it’s like she’s looking deeper. She strokes his hair with much, much care.

“From afar” she says, “the moon seems to be made of silver,” Remus welcomes her caress. “But when the astronauts arrived, they saw that it was only a deserted rock full of holes.”

Astronauts. Sirius doesn’t know what those are. Muggles? At the moon? She must be kidding. They don’t know how to make a broom fly, so it's impossible that they managed to get up there.

They make a picture of soft and fragile movement. Lily and Remus. The mirror duplicating their figures. Two Lilys, redheaded and gentle. Two Remus, half naked and pale, speaking quietly.

“So we can safely deduce that the closer one gets to the moon, the uglier it becomes.”

He’s not talking about the moon, of course, but about himself. And it’s strange. It’s truly strange that Remus believes himself to be ugly. Stranger still is that, as Sirius sees Remus’s body, the width of his shoulders, the arms that are too long, his fringe and his nose, he craves to do something to make him stop feeling that way. Ugly? Remus? Remus is magic. Has no one ever told him? _What kind of dumb shits have you been with, mate?_

With better words, Lily says what Sirius would want to say but does not know how.

“In that instance you and the moon are complete opposites, Remus.”

“Damn right.”

Sirius doesn’t realise he said it out loud, his voice rough, until he notices Remus’ eyes on him through the mirror. Remus paralyses him on the bed with that look. It creates a knot in Sirius’ throat and revives that distant angry feeling that awakened back in London.

Lily finishes with the potion and closes the jar.

“If you asked me out,” she says, “to you I would say yes, Remus.” Her tone is lighter than before when the air in the room was starting to become strained.

“Right,” answers Remus; sceptical. “Sure.”

“You tell him, Black.”

Tell him what? Sirius feels slightly confused.

“Eh… If you asked her out, Remus, Lily would say yes.” He plays the idiot, he’s incredibly good at it after years of practice. “Careful with James’ wand because he’ll probably castrate you. If that does happen though you could finally reach your dream of joining the choir.”

“Not that, you idiot. Tell him that if you were to go out with a guy it would be him, right?”

 _Fuck, what kind of question is that, Evans?_ If Sirius knew how to blush he would do so in an immediate and violent manner. Luckily, he doesn’t know.

“Of course, everything has been decided and plans arranged. James will end up with Peter, Remus and I will shack up. I was gonna get together with James but I just can’t stand how he says your name in bed, Evans.”

Unlike Sirius, Lily does know how to blush. It’s soft and reaches her hairline. She tries to conceal it. Playing it down.

“Get dressed, Remus,” she says, changing stage. “One Sirius Black is starting to look at you with bad intentions.”

She has the spirit of a troublemaker, that much is clear. Sirius is about to argue. He wants to. It’s what he always does, after all: return every single bullet in kind, shoot everything that moves. He’s about to say “I always have bad intentions, Evans”, but it’s true that in seventeen years he has looked at everything –absolutely everything– with bad intentions, searching for a dirty trick before it’s even noon. But never when it comes to him. To think of Remus? With bad intentions?

When Remus and Lily leave, the healing potion stays on the table. Sirius walks over and smells it. He sniffs at it. Engraves the scent in his canine olfactory memory and archives it in that compartment of smells labelled as “Remus,” where the nocturnal scent of the forest and full moon nights lie together.

It has never even crossed his mind, until that moment, that it was remotely possible to think of Remus with bad intentions.

 

 

**Spill, Spill**

James Potter doesn’t know how to smoke. He either lets out all the smoke without breathing it in, or he tries to breathe in or ends up coughing wildly and almost losing his footing. In the end, he looks pale and somehow slimmer than he is already. He also holds a joint as if it were a hated aunt with particularly bad breath. It’s funny to watch him but when his face goes green, Sirius takes away the joint before he chokes to death.

“This is good and expensive herb, Potter. You don’t deserve it.”

There’s barely any light inside the shed and, while the rest of the school studies in a silence that’s interrupted every now and then by murmurs and yawns, James and Sirius take a break. Finals are closing in. Their sixth year is about to end, just like the joint. Sirius holds it between his fingers and watches the smoke forming spirals in the air.

“Hey, mate, did you know some muggles made it to the moon?”

James swallows in an attempt to stop his coughing.

“In a rocket, I knew that,” he says it with galactic admiration. “Must be great to ride a rocket, can you imagine? Better than a broom. All the way to the moon.”

“How did you know?”

“Unlike you, I passed muggle studies.”

“I passed, you twit.”

“You created fake anti-copy quills and copied Remus.”

The smoke makes staggered silhouettes and through them James looks blurry. Perhaps a little dizzy.

“Hey, Potter.”

“What?”

_How do you know you won’t like a guy giving you head if one hasn’t done it before?_

Everything looks blurry.

“Well, have you…?” Sirius is not certain he wants to ask.

“What?”

_Have you wondered where that long scar of Remus’ ends? Have you ever imagined him swearing to you that he’s up to no good? Have you noticed how the scars in his chest look like the halls of Hogwarts in our map?_

James stares at him, his eyes look red.

“Have you ever thought of making a potion so Snivellus will sing nonstop?”

James’ eyes immediately shine and the professors spend three days to stop Snape form making his life at Hogwarts a musical. Sirius torments him by saying they need a Judas Jesus Christ Superstar and a furious Severus insults him in B minor.

 

 

**Dumbledore’s announcement**

That year, before final exams begin and students can start roaming the halls in hysterics over the wars of the giants and the goblin revolts in history and the weights and measurements in potions, headmaster Dumbledore proposes a relaxing activity to end the year. A little bit of fun after the exams so that everyone can rid themselves of the stress and anguish before heading home. The students hear rumours but none knows what it is. The popular theory is that it must be a ball.

“Great,” James is a well of irony. “Another opportunity for Lily Evans to reject me in a whole new and more original way.”

It’s not a ball, but something completely new to Hogwarts.

“The cinema!” declares Dumbledore during dinner. There’s many students who don’t know what he’s on about, and the headmaster hastily explains that it’s not magic, but a muggle technique to give movement to still pictures while telling a fictitious story. “What’s curious,” he continues with much excitement, “is that the entire invention is based on a small defect in the human retina.”

His explanation is long, enthusiastic and elaborate but the students stop listening as soon as they discover that only those with permission to go to Hogsmeade will also be allowed to the cinema. Most of them usually pay no attention when Dumbledore is so excited over something but they rub their hands over their thighs thinking about an exciting visit to Hogsmeade that involves a room in the dark.

“Any chance we’ll get to watch a porno?” asks Sirius.

“As much chance as you have of becoming the Minister for Magic,” answers Remus.

“What’s a porno?” Peter wants to know.

James only wants to know how dark the room has to be for films to work and how he can create a strategy to sit beside Lily. When Dumbledore, at the end of his speech, announces the cinema night includes a possibility to sleep in the Great Hall as a reward for an excellent academic year, there’s a chorus of cheers among all four tables.

“Did you hear?” James’ delighted. “I can sleep in the same room as Lily!”

“You would be adorable, Jimmy, if you weren’t pathetic,” Sirius feigns being truly worried. And then lifts his eyes to the sky. “Merlin, if it’s always like this, don’t let me fall in love ever. I implore you.” When he’s tired of begging to a higher power, he turns to Remus. “Don’t tell me this level of obsession isn’t sad.”

“It’s very sad, of course.”

Even sadder still is that- and this he doesn’t say it aloud,- after six years of sleeping in the same room as Sirius, Remus still finds it exciting to put his sleeping bag next to his after the movie. _I’m shameful. I should put an end to this._

“Calm down, Sirius, you’ll never fall in love. You’ve slept with all the girls in the United Kingdom and if it hasn’t happened yet we can be sure that you’re vaccinated against it. You might even have a natural immunity or something like that.”

“What do you say to that, Remus?”

 _I’d rather not say anything. I would prefer to change the subject right about now._ Why is it that lately there’s no ordinary and safe conversations where his feelings aren’t in danger of being exposed and immediately ridiculed?

“I say James is right. I wouldn’t worry if I were you. You must be immune.”

Sirius stares at him with daunting intensity.

“Not about me, idiot. About you.”

His heart flips. James turns to him expectantly, he’s so calm, like it’s no big deal.

“Yeah, Remus, you’ve never been in love either?” he asks with curiosity.

He feels like a cornered wolf. Trapped by hunters that want to shoot him and eat his insides.

“Ah, never… I mean, that word is such an absolute. I wouldn’t use it to such a degree.”

“Is that a yes?” Sirius doesn’t even bother to be nice. He pushes. He pressures. As if he cared, as if it were his business. “Who is it?”

Remus should tell him. In that moment. _It’s you, you moron._ He should shout it and be relieved. Unquestionably, everything would become awkward and tense between them and Sirius would be livid and would pretend nothing is going on and that they’re still friends just like always but it would never be the same because he would finally know and that would ruin everything, putting an end to the only family Remus has left. So Remus confesses. It’s his only option.

“Ringo Starr. It’s true, seriously. Not Paul nor John, there’s only Ringo for me.”

Sirius throws him a napkin, says “fuck off” and protests with “you never tell us a thing”.

 

 

**Bewitched**

The atmosphere is festive that night in Hogsmeade. At the back of the bar a group of Wizards in their forties celebrate the birthday of one of their own and they all sing _For the love of Merlin_ and other summer hits in Witch Weekly charts. When they’ve finished their rendition of _Circe, sad eyed goddess_ they go on with _The magic in your eyes and other jinxes to the heart._ If they manage to get one note right is only because of an enthusiastic coincidence. One could almost say there’s magic involved when they manage to harmonise for a second.

The other patrons ignore them and drink fire whiskey from flasks that float around serving it into their glasses as requested, going from table to table. The waitress is a woman of dangerous curves and a cleavage that’s treacherous for those in risk of heart disease. She always saves the best tables for the Hogwarts boys and is in the habit of calling them “handsome”. It would be flattering if she wouldn’t say it to everyone, including other girls and even house elves. No one could say she has a keen eye, but she’s amusing. _The back table is free, handsome!_ James and Peter, Sirius and Remus sit around four pints of butter beer, to celebrate that it’s Friday, that they’re young, and that sooner than later it will be summer. It’s a clear night but the breeze is cool. It’s May in Scotland and, when he sits in front of James, Remus unbuttons his jacket but doesn’t take it off.

“Come on, Remus,” James bring his beer closer, “you have to tell me how I can do it. There’s barely a month left for vacation, man, and if I don’t go out with her, I’ll probably kill myself. I’m serious.”

 _The Lily Evans Archives and Why She Doesn’t Like Me_ episode 501. Sirius believes that there comes a point where it’s not enjoyable anymore to make fun of the miserable bloke. He knows that if he stays at the table, it’ll be like he’s receiving the same lecture over and over. So, not even ten minutes in, he heads for the bar and starts getting intimate with some American witches who are visiting the mother country. A shame that James has retired from the game because Sirius is sniffing crystal clear intentions for that night. The brunette for him, the redhead for James since he seems to like them. The two of them look at him with that languor that alcohol provides and, as she drinks, the brunette doesn’t break eye contact with him.

_Your loss, Prongs. More for me._

The girls say they’re visiting family. If they had been twins, Sirius would howl. They’re cousins. The Blacks have always married their cousins. Which, in Sirius opinion, explains almost everything about the Blacks.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?” asks the redhead.

She looks at the back of the establishment. Peter has his pint on his hand and holds onto it like it’s about to run away, while looking at James with that admiration that comes close to veneration. From a distance, Sirius thinks he can hear James’ moaning and whining and is sure that love, by all the heavens, must be a terrible thing. Remus must have gone to the loo

“We are told you are some kind of Quidditch stars,” says the brunette. She does the drinking and looking thing and she does it marvellously because Sirius feels like putting his finger on her mouth. “You and your friend, it’s what we heard.”

The girl points to James.

“You heard right. Unfortunately, the other star is in bad shape lately” Sirius leans on the bar, let’s his hair fall on his face. “Poor fellow fell in love. It’s tragic,” he declares. “I could introduce you to little Peter but I don’t think you’ll be interested.”

It’s not that Peter is a bad person. But when it comes to introducing him to girls one is trying to impress, he’s not exactly Great Britain’s pride. Though from afar he kind of looks like the Queen Mother, now that Sirius is paying attention.

“I’m sorry, ladies, but I’m the only one left.”

And his tone leaves no doubt that he should be enough for the two to be happy. The redhead laughs. A deep and aromatic laugh, like fire whisky. She breathes out the cigarette smoke and the laugh turns into a smile that’s full of invitation. _God bless America._

“What about the other one?”

The brunette- Annie- points to the table. For a second, Sirius can’t see anything. There’s a coat in front of the table and, naturally, someone inside the coat, back from the toilets, seating in front of James, crossing his legs and taping over his clothing to find tobacco. Remus. He hits the cigarette pack against the table a couple of times. When the first cigarette peaks out, he takes it out with care and puts it to his lips and pats his clothing again. This time looking for a lighter.

“What about him?” Sirius asks.

Suddenly he misses not having a cigarette in his hands.

“Is he out of the game too?” whispers a voice in his ear.

She’s close to Sirius, the brunette. So close, in fact, he can feel her breath on the back of his head, by his ear. It tickles while Remus lights his cigarette. Behind him, through the window, Sirius can see Hogsmeade covered by night shadows. The bar is nothing more than a ghost ship gone adrift and Sirius feels like he’s floating. He hears the redhead through the haze.

“My cousin likes your friend.”

“Alright,” Sirius feels his mouth is dry. “My friend, on the other hand, likes other things.”

They must have taken a few steps closer while Sirius was looking towards the table and Remus because he now can feel the body heat of both witches in every cell in his body. He’s beginning to feel steamy, boiling. As if he had smoked and drank too much.

“Really?” the brunette’s voice mixes with the redhead’s voice. Their voices are melodic; they make him want to fly. “What kind of things?”

It’s hot. It’s extremely hot and Remus wears his coat with the collar slightly lifted. Sirius wonders how he can stand it. His own clothing feels too heavy, almost painfully so. And the girls are too close, their voices reaching under his skin.

“Blokes,” he manages to say. “He likes blokes.”

He shouldn’t tell, probably. It’s not anyone’s business, right? But the girls want to know and everything is weak and steamy that night, like the cigarette Remus balances on his fingers. James doesn’t take his eyes off him as he speaks, with that hurt puppy expression, and Remus laughs every now and then, throwing his head backwards. He takes a drag. When he lets the smoke out, he leans his elbow on the table and touches his mouth with his thumb as if he wants to capture the tobacco left behind. Sirius doesn’t know what’s happening or why the details seem to be sharper than life.

He feels the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Brunette, redhead, doesn’t matter. A sibylline voice speaks in his ear.

“Does he like all of them or just the good looking ones like you?”

He’s feels so, so hot.

“I’ve no idea,” he doesn’t, not a clue. Sirius doesn’t know how Remus likes them. He’s never thought of that. Maybe he likes that Slytherin, in spite of how unpleasant that thought sounds. Sirius must admit he feels a bit curious. Only a little. The bar sways and Sirius sways with it. “Why?”

If there’s a tone Sirius knows to recognise, project, and classify it’s the one for bad intentions. The brunette- she’s the one that’s touching his shoulder and slightly leaning onto him now that he looks over- adopts that tone and it’s clear that she has the worst kind of bad intentions that he can imagine. With him, of course. And with Remus.

“Because if you’re up to it,” she says, letting her words fall like butter in a hot pan so that Sirius can feel them, one by one, dripping into his pants. “We would like to watch.”

Once, he must have been twelve, he forgot to add cold water to the tub before going in and sometimes, he still dreams of that crushing sensation that paralysed his heart. All that hot water. It was like going into a boiling cauldron, like walking through pain’s doorstep and finding pleasure on the other side, only for a second, before his skin started shrinking and it became unbearable. He remembers it all, in that bar, because it feels the same. Exactly the same sensation when the brunette’s tongue runs on his ear _would you like us to watch?_ and then she goes to his neck, bites softly _we want to watch, Sirius –_ he doesn’t know when he told them his name – _while he smokes you like that cigarette._

The image filters into his mind, uncaring of his own will. He feels himself become smoke and vapour and Remus’ tongue slides like a ship through his mouth. It’s only a second. An intense trance. It disappears as soon as it appeared, as soon as the sound of chairs against floor awakens him. James and Peter are walking away from the table and the mesmerism falls apart. Remus walks with them and comes by to announce it’s time to go back to school.

“We’re heading out, Sirius.”

He says so without taking his eyes off the girls at Sirius’ shoulders. _They would like to watch, Moony,_ he thinks. _I have to get out of here,_ he thinks. _I must be drunk._ He thinks of everything and nothing. As he leaves, the brunette exchanges a look with Remus that Sirius prefers not to interpret.

“You got a light?”

And Remus, who has always been familiar, seems like another person whom Sirius has never seen when he takes out his silver lighter from his jeans, opens it with his thumb and takes it to the girl’s cigarette. The flames give off an orange iridescence. Remus and the girl become an oil painting: half light, half shadow. The cigarette starts burning, and Remus’ hair is short by the back of his head and there’s a scar that’s hidden under the collar that’s still pink and is long like a slash.

The next thing Sirius remembers is that he’s outside the bar and its Remus who pushes him and the girls have disappeared, walking away with a suggestive “see you later, boys” that in an ordinary night wouldn’t make Sirius blink but tonight shakes him to the core.

Ten meters away from the bar, he feels himself awakening from a sort of hangover.

“What the shit happened to me in there?”

Remus has his hand in his pockets, and the son of a bitch looks amused.

“They’re Veelas, Sirius. Couldn’t you tell?”

_Of course they are._

“No. Fuck, I don’t know. They told me they were American.”

“They say Americans are more easy” assures Peter. “Maybe in America I could pull too.”

James teases him

“Easy, Peter, but not blind.”

“Well, it’s said” Peter continues, as if James wasn’t talking to him, “that Veelas can convince anyone of doing anything they please. Anything!”

“What did they tell you, Padfoot?” James wants to know and it’s clear by the look he gives Sirius that he would like to hear something humiliating to torment him.

For the first time since he can remember, Sirius doesn’t feel like pulling a prank.

“Nothing. They didn’t say anything.”

They go into Honeydukes unseen and walk in a line through the passage ways leading to Hogwarts. Once they’re in their dormitory, Sirius falls into his bed only in his underwear and feels that it’s too hot to sleep. He turns, breaths in deeply. Damn it to hell. He’s annoyed to have fallen under the Veelas’ spell. How could he not notice?

“Have they bewitched you, Padfoot?” Remus, from his bed. Awake. His voice rougher than normal. _Must be the tobacco._

“Seems like it.”

It’s four in the morning when he finally falls asleep. Every time he closes his eyes those hypnotic witches and their charms appear. _We want to watch. While he smokes you like that cigarette._ And that idiot Peter pestering him. _What did they tell you to do?_ If he hadn’t realised what they were, if Remus hadn’t gotten him out of that bar, maybe… who knows what they would have achieved. But no, of course, they wouldn’t have gotten far. Remus would have noticed, right? Remus wouldn’t have allowed it.

Of course not.

_Stupid Veelas._


	7. Chapter 6

**Life lines**

Saturday morning. Hogwarts smells like exams. In the Great Hall, during breakfast, more than one student has to magically repair their cups. Nervousness can be felt in the air and their hands turn clumsy and elusive. Lily summons the pumpkin juice mug from the opposite end of the table and makes it serve her a glass.

“You should do the same. It has many vitamins. And I’m not trying to offend, but you don’t look well.”

“I love you too.”

Lily kicks him affectionately under the table.

“Not like that. You look tired. Let me guess,” she takes his hand and sets on reading it with a fully concentrated expression. “Let’s see here. The hand tells me that… you went out last night and only slept a couple of hours even though the OWLS are almost on us.”

He can’t help it. Lily’s maternal disapproval is amusing. He’s not used to people worrying over him like that.

“We didn’t come back that late,” he argues in that self-justifying manner of kids who enjoy being chastised.

Lily narrows her eyes and studies his hand, pretending to analyse it in depth.

“The hand says ‘dirty lie’.”

“That bitch is a bloody snitch.”

“Remus, you’re spending too much time with Sirius. Watch that language” she adds jokingly. “What the hand doesn’t say is how you manage to get out the castle so often.”

“If the hand told you that, your dear James and a gangster by the name of Black would cut it off from the wrist.”

Even when she wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue at him, Lily Evans maintains that subtle kind of charm that makes her irresistible. Sometimes Remus has the feeling that even that disagreeable and greasy mob stick that is Severus Snape goes soft when it comes to her. But he could just be hallucinating. Or it may be that even the hardest of hearts have their vulnerable side.

With Lily’s gentle touch, even his hand looks pretty to him.

“Hey, look, the love line,” she says. “No, wait, it’s not a line. It’s a motorway.”

“Very subtle.”

James is always late for breakfast and, during the weekends, Sirius doesn’t even show up. He prefers to sleep late and snack on food he keeps under his bed. There’s always less students on Saturday mornings and the Great Hall looks like a muggle cathedral, illuminated by the first rays of sunlight. Ideal for secrets and sleeplessness and the perfect scenery for Lily to insist yet again that Remus should do something. _Look, Remus, Sirius is the only thing I know you like more than chocolate._ It’s part of her nature to persist. She does it with the best of intentions. _You’ll finish school without telling him a thing, watching him sleep with one girl after another while you slowly die inside._ When she says it, it all sounds logical.

“Lily, Sirius is not just heterosexual, alright? If there was a free and democratic vote to choose the leader of the heterosexuals, Sirius Black would be crowned Prime Minister.”

“I don’t think so. Prime Ministers are not crowned.”

Stubborn as an ox. Sometimes she’s worse than Sirius.

“I now you mean well but I don’t feel like going through a hard and hurtful rejection, Lily. I already feel fortunate to be considered his friend, you know? It’s more than I expected.” Much, much more. “More than I deserve.”

“Don’t you dare say that again, Remus Lupin. Have you heard me? I don’t know anyone else who deserves to be happy as much as you, is that clear?”

What is he to say. He can only nod. Lily’s eyes get a liquid quality, they go soft. _You can’t know about the rejection,_ she assures him. _Sometimes these things work out._ But the argument loses its weight when James Potter sits beside them, hopeful as ever, and asks Lily on a study date.

“A serious thing. Just a study date, Evans. A date. But serious.”

Things may workout sometimes but, truth be told, watching James’s face as he hears ‘I’m sorry, Potter, I don’t go out with children’ and seeing his heart fall to the floor doesn’t exactly help to hold on to hope. James leaves without eating breakfast and walks out of the Great Hall dragging his feet along with his soul.

“So these things work out sometimes, right?”

She endeavours not to look at James. Unrelenting towards herself and her goals.

“What? You’re talking about him?” she asks, trying to lighten the issue. “Sirius would never do that to you.”

But she doesn’t look him in the eye when she says it and this time Remus takes her hand, to read her love line.

“And how long are you carrying on doing it, Lily?”

Her chest shakes when she sighs. And her voice sounds fragile, too small, when she answers without looking at him still.

“We weren’t talking about me.”

They walk towards the front doors and past the Slytherin table. Remus waves back towards a guy with light brown hair, sharp and noble features, green eyes, who has a certain desperate melancholy to him. Lily elbows Remus lightly on the side and gives him her suggestive glance to announce with a secretive whisper that _he’s very handsome._ Remus sighs a torn up _yes_ and a despairing _he certainly is_ that comes from the pit of his stomach and leaves him breathless.

“I was talking about Daniel, Remus.”

“What? Yes. Yes,” he repeats. “Me too. Of course.”

Of course.

 

 

**Denial in dog form**

At first, his nose becomes itchy during Transfiguration class. Then an hour later, in Care of Magical Creatures, the first sneeze blares in his chest like a typhoon. The mandrakes in front of him start crying like hysterical demons when his saliva goes flying all over them. In spite of it all, during lunch, Sirius firmly declares he won’t be going to the Hospital Wing. Doesn’t matter how much James and Peter and Remus insist because they’re just sissies that get scared of everything.

“Besides, I never get sick.”

In reality he sounds like “beside, I gever get sig”. During Divination he notices a vague pain in his bones but he blames it on the herbs they burn in class to open the “third eye”. When he’s walking down the stone steps to an Occlumancy seminar, he feels that the steps run lower and lower and that they’re magically altered to go round and round in rhythm with the drumming in his head. He must admit how hard it’s becoming to focus his eyes, and how the dizziness makes his stomach turn, but it’s got nothing to do with why he needs to lean on the wall for just a second. That doesn’t mean he’s sick. A faraway, familiar voice asks if he’s alright and immediately sends him to the Hospital Wing until he starts feeling better. It’s Mr. Filch’s voice, he thinks. He is not sick, NATURALLY, but he’s not about to say no to missing a class, right? He tries to nod; his head is so heavy, as if it were filled with liquid mercury. Everything seems to be so far, far away.

“Yes, Mr. Filch.”

It’s costing him to talk through the tension and the sore throat but.he.is.not.sick.

“I’m Professor McGonagall, Mr. Black.”

Not without effort, Sirius manages to focus his sight. He distinguishes a pointy hat, a long tunic and a certain severe expression mixed with annoyance. Maybe he’s a little sick, after all.

 

 

**Let me kiss it better**

On the third day, Sirius is desperate. Eight shitty hours a day alone in Gryffindor tower. Not allowed to leave. Without sufficient energy to imagine innovative ways to torture Snivellous. If he tries to sit up too fast, he feels dizzy. If he tries to read, the lines overlap. If he talks for a while, his throat hurts. His chest burns. He feels hot. He feels cold. He feels hot and cold at the same time. The healer who visits him has a worse temper than his cousin Antonia, whose mother even used to call “harpy”, which, going by her mother’s standards, it was almost like the devil calling anyone a demon.

To make matters worse, he has to use revolting ointments that smell like a rotten mandrake. He also has to drink awful infusions that taste like Peter’s dirty socks in boiling water. And Sirius doesn’t even want to think about the food. Healing soup. That’s it. Three days with nothing solid to eat. By mid-afternoon on Thursday, he is so hungry he could eat his bed. The useless clots who call themselves his friends don’t fucking care to bring something from the Great Hall for him. They say that it’s “Healer’s orders”. Sodding cowards.

Between classes, Remus has the decency to go up to their dormitory.

“Moooooony” he whines, as soon as the door opens.

“What’s wrong with you now?”

He says it with an affectionate tone, but Sirius’ infected mind is annoyed anyway.

“Nothing,” what happens is that he’s bored. He’s hungry. He’s done! “I’m dying, that’s it.”

Merlin, it’s hot. First time he has a fever and it’s during spring time. The sheets feel sticky against his skin. He pulls them off angrily and lays on the bed. He raves, he moves, he can’t find a good position, everything hurts. He ends up on his stomach, without strength to pull off his pyjama bottoms. Burning up. The room pulses and uncoils. He chest smells of liniment and the vapour of the ointment makes him dizzy. Remus sits on the bed next to Sirius’. He doesn’t remember whose bed that is. Everything is so confusing when he’s sick. It’s strange.

“No, seriously. I think I’m dying. And I don’t see anyone worried, Remus.” He sees a smile in Remus and he focuses on the falling curve as he lowers his eyelids, eyes filled with humour. “I’ll die here alone, in Gryffindor tower,” he moans. “You’ll find my corpse at supper time, but don’t cry for me.” He’s definitely laughing. Remus Lupin, the bastard, finds his situation incredibly funny. Miserable arse. “Load me on a boat and set me on fire on the sea, that’s all I ask.” With the strength he has left, he half lifts his body with one arm and extends the other. He pulls Remus’ tie, to get him closer so he can focus his face. His reflexes are all over the place so their foreheads crash. Doesn’t hurt much. It’s difficult to coordinate and, oh, yes that’s it, that’s better, nose to nose with Remus, who is the only thing in the room that doesn’t smell of ointment. For now. “I want a Viking funeral, Moony.”

Even his breath is burning up. Remus must feel it on his face. Maybe it’s burning his skin as well.

“Will you get me a small boat if I die here, Remus?”

“You’re not dying, Padfoot.”

Sirius drops the hand on his tie. What does Remus know about how close to death he is. If he says he’s dying, then he’s bloody dying and there’s nothing else to discuss. Sirius grabs Remus. He holds on to his neck to keep balance. His skin feels fresh. Very relieving. Freshness. Relief. Yes, better, much, loads better.

“Promise me,” he orders. His own voice sound nasal, closer to how Remus’ voice typically sounds. That afternoon, however, he sounds faint, as if he had fallen sick as well.

“I promise you won’t die.”

Sirius likes the vehemence in his assurance. Mmm, yes. He likes it. Much more than being sick. Yes, much more. The room smells like healing ointment and rosemary but Remus says Sirius won’t die. That’s alright.

“But if I die you’ll get me a boat.”

“You have a bike. Now you want a boat?”

Fuck, it’s hot. His fingers are hot and now Remus neck has lost part of that intense freshness. Maybe it’s more comfortable if he puts his hands on his face and, oh, yes. Yes, yes, and a thousand times yes. Unlike his body’s temperature, Remus is fresh grass, an April afternoon and a shower at the end of the day. Soothing. Certainly. Sirius closes his eyes to enjoy him better. Mmmm. He hasn’t felt anything so incredible in three days. He feels his entire body refreshing, even his feet and his ideas.

“Reeeeeeemuuuuuus” he whines his name, like a howl. “Promise me.”

“Alright. Whatever you want, Sirius.” When he speaks it’s like a painful gasp, and his breath on his face is also soothing. “I’ll get you anything you want.”

That’s better. Yes. Remus will take care of him. Much better. He’ll have a Viking funeral. So good.

“Just how I like it.” Yes, everything is great. Leaning against Remus. “You’re fresh.”

With a slight choking sound, Remus asks “What?” but Sirius has no strength to reply, nor to keep leaning on him, so he lays on the bed. More like, he falls into the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he makes out a silhouette that stands up and walks to the door. NOW HE’S LEAVING? He can’t leave! Has so much time passed? He doesn’t know what time it is but he doesn’t want to be alone again. The bed feels sticky.

“Oi!” he has no strength to demand, so he begs. He uses his best impression of a puppy abandoned in the middle of a storm. “Don’t go.”

“Sirius, I have class.”

Remus’ voice is so smooth. Jeez. Why is nothing as smooth? Being sick makes everything hard and violent and way too luminescent. But not Remus. Nope. With Remus he’s alright. If Remus could stay everything would be good. All those times they’ve skipped classes and now the traitor wants to leave. Sirius turns his abandoned puppy look to an abandoned and hurt puppy look.

“You should stay with me!”

He seems to think it over. As if he finds it difficult to make a decision but wants to pretend otherwise. _You’re fresh,_ murmurs Sirius, in such a low voice that it’s almost a diluted thought. _Like a giant ice cube._

“You think I have nothing better to do than entertain you, Padfoot?”

“Well you shouldn’t!”

What’s more, if Remus were a good friend, he would be sick as well. It’s the minimum effort anyone would do. Yes, that’s it. That sounds like a reasonable idea.

“You know what? I’ll give you my disease and then you’ll have to stay. When you leave I plan on getting in your bed, drop sweat all over your sheets and then brush my teeth with your toothbrush. And if that doesn’t work, and you don’t deign to get sick in solidarity, I will lick on every plate you’ll use. And if that doesn’t work then…” he tries to imagine something worse but his imagination is scarce. “I’ll wait until you’re asleep and I’ll lick you from head to toe until you’re shivering and sweating and burning up! And you’ll feel as hot as I do!” There. Good plan. There’s almost not strength on him after so many words. But he’s sure Remus got the idea. “It’s hot in here!” He shrieks. “Remus, I’m burning up,” he half sobs.

He’s not sure but before falling asleep, delirious, with a high fever, he thinks he hears Remus’ voice saying “you’re not the only one”. But it could just be the fever.

 

 

**Infect me**

Remus never makes it to Potions class. Sirius is right. It’s too hot to spend the time amongst bubbling cauldrons. Instead, he goes to the changing rooms under the Quidditch pitch knowing that with ongoing classes they will be empty. The long stands are bare. He starts taking his clothes off as soon as he walks in. His shoes land in a corner, without help from his hands. With a swift movement, he pulls off his pants along with his trousers and socks. And he pulls is shirt upwards without unbuttoning it, making his under shirt and tie go with it simultaneously. His breathing is agitated, he can’t wait. If he doesn’t touch himself, if he doesn’t find some relief, he’s going to explode.

The showers are empty and no one can see him barefooted, naked, hard, standing under the falling water. Tall as Gryffindor tower, muscular backside marked by a couple of bruises, scattered deep cuts on his freckled back. Broad chest, hair on his face, closed eyes. Pale, concentrated, firmly but slowly moving his hand to make the moment last, clinging to the fevered feeling that covers his skin and runs through his blood. Remus can only think of him and his words and his skin, fuck, the abrasive feeling of his skin. So close.

 _I’ll wait until you’re asleep and I’ll lick you from head to toe until you’re shivering and sweating and burning up_.

Remus shivers and sweats and burns up.

_And you’ll feel as hot as I do._

He’s hot. He’s hot all over. He can’t bear it. So close and so far, growing more intense every time and he can’t bear it any longer.

 _Infect me_ he murmurs, as he masturbates in the showers. _Infect me, Sirius,_ as he comes under the streaming water.

 

 

**The value of purity**

The message appears written in blood. The first to see it as they walk to their beds after dinner are the kids from lower years. A girl from second year screams “it’s blood!” and soon, a hysterical mob announces that someone’s been killed. Remus and James are climbing the stairs to go see Sirius when Peter tells them. Shaken expression, sweating from panic. _It’s written in blood!_ In the grand staircase, by the entrance that leads to Gryffindor Tower. Letters that seem to float in the air, product of a spell. Blood, yes, but not human.

“Animal,” Remus can recognise the smell as soon as he arrives. “It’s animal blood, Prongs.”

Hours pass before McGonagall and Dumbledore can find a counter spell and make them disappear. Meanwhile everyone who tries to go to Gryffindor Tower can read MUDBLOODS WILL BE THE FIRST TO FALL on the grand staircase. Students from other Houses go by to see it with their own eyes and James sees Lily, pale as a corpse, in the middle of the crowd. Far behind her, he recognises a cold smile, pure as snow, full of satisfaction and pride. _Lucius_. He doesn’t know how to contain his actions. He’s one meter away from punching his face, from feeling his blood, dammit it, when Remus firmly stops him.

“If you get expelled, James,” the tone in his voice reminds him of the howl of a wolf. “It’ll only prove that they can win.”

“Calm down, Potter” Lucius tell him. Chin lifted, poison in his eyes. “You’re not even a half-blood, right? Even if you like that Mudblood. Why is that? Don’t you know how to look within your own station?”

“I reject any station in which you may belong, Malfoy.”

“We must preserve magical purity, Potter. That’s all I meant.”

So repulsive. James feel so disgusted he could be sick right where he stands.

“Not only don’t you know what purity means, Lucius, you have no idea what magic truly is.”

He walks away because he knows that if he stays he’s going to have to strangle him. Remus pulls him away, but stronger is the pull of that sensation of filth stuck to his gut. The nausea stays with him for hours and during that time he can’t overcome the tidal emotion of seeing Lily’s expression as it went from horror when she read the message to contained tears while listening to Malfoy. If Lucius understood anything about magic, that filthy son of a bitch would never make her cry because it’s in those green eyes that James has found the only hope that magic can truly transform the world into a better place.

The next morning, the message has disappeared and the school seems to have regained some of its normality. No one, except Dumbledore and McGonagall, knows that there was a hidden message that followed the first one. Neither of them has slept since the first message appeared.

“Dark times are near, Minerva.”

Professor McGonagall nods.

“Very dark times.”

The message will never be erased from their memories, nor from Hogwarts’ history. Seven terrible words. IN THE END ONLY PURITY WILL STAND.

 

 

**I have more, you have more, I have most**

Two days later. Before dinner. The headmaster conveys to the students that their exams schedule is now available and reminds them to maintain peace of mind because this time of year _challenges our fortitude of spirit more than our knowledge._ Then he reminds them of the various cases of neglected owls and asks that those with pets take very good care of them because, in the end, _a good pet is like a good pair of socks: rarely found._ With notices and announcements out of the way, Dumbledore prepares to stand down from his lectern when a familiar hand raises from the Gryffindor table.

“Yes, Mr. Black? Do you have something to say?”

“If you’ll allow it, Professor, I would like to address the school. It’ll only be a moment.”

The old professor nods. Behind the white beard and the glasses that are too small for his face and seem suspended in place by magic alone, he feels curiosity, though he would prefer not to confess it. _One never knows what these sixth years will do._

“Well, I just wanted to share that I am now fully recovered from the disease that has kept me out of classes during this week,” says Sirius, with a loud enough voice so everyone can hear him. There’s murmuring and a few laughs. “I know people have been very worried and that my absence has been noticed. In particular, I’ve been told that Mr. ...” he turns to the neighbouring table, to the green and silver colours and eyes that watch him with contempt. “that Mr. Malfoy has been profoundly worried for my health. After all, in spite of our public disagreements, I am one of the few in this school whose blood is just as pure as Mr. Malfoy’s,” he says, clearly raising his voice. “That is something that brings us together.”

Disapproval. Surprise. The murmuring increases. Dumbledore asks for silence and Sirius observes the severe annoyance in McGonagall’s face but above all a horror in Lily Evans, who sits in front of him beside Remus, that is difficult to classify.

James sees it too. He’s immediately on his feet.

“Sirius, I can’t believe you just said that,” he says, solemnly.

Sirius shrugs and flips his hair to the back.

“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, my friend. Lucius and I are the aristocracy of this school. His father and my grandfather were cousins.”

“Really?” James’ tone begins to sound mocking. “I was told their fathers were cousins.”

“Yes, of course, that too. It’s a delicate matter. To maintain purity, sometimes familial ties must be woven together a bit too tight. I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear.”

Sirius loudly murmurs INCEST. Remus murmurs _bloody hell_. Lily murmurs _what poisoned potion have you two taken._ James doesn’t even flinch.

“Look, Sirius if there’s someone truly, TRULY pure in this school, that would be me. In my family there hasn’t been a single muggle in centuries. My ancestors can be counted back to Merlin himself.”

“Is that so? Then I’m purer than you. Because my ancestors date back to Circe. Maybe even earlier and all the wizarding world knows that there was nothing before Circe. Only hippogriffs and elves.”

Before the attentive, astonished, confused and hectic eyes of seven hundred students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, James and Sirius argue about which of them is the purest. Pure as hippogriff dung which according to James is “pure shit” and pure as the exams that are “pure horror” in Sirius’ words. When Dumbledore asks for silence and order and for them to _keep that interesting matter between themselves, because everyone is hungry_ both of them agree that, honestly, there’s no point to their argument.

“Because you and I, James, must agree that clearly Lucius Malfoy is and will always be much purer than both of us,” proclaims Sirius in an extremely loud voice. “Let’s face it.”

James agrees.

“When you’re right, Black, you’re right.”

In the meantime, while everyone looks at them, the milk jugs from Slytherin table softly fly towards the centre where Lucius Malfoy observes the argument without knowing exactly what is happening but feeling his irritation grow by increments. He doesn’t see the moment when the jugs ascend, gain momentum, make a curve and one by one drop their contents – white, pure, immaculate – over him. One after the other. He shoots up furious, shouting, trying to get his wand, watched by milk jugs as he storms out of the Great Hall yelling insults and threats. The jugs stay behind and draw on the table. Milk letters form a message that appears and disappears before Dumbledore has had time to hide his smile.

LUCIUS MALFOY: PURE COW MILK

They’re admonished, of course. They have to listen to McGonagall’s sermon – _Headaches! You two have given me more headaches in six years than all the other students of this House in twenty years! –._ And they must go to Dumbledore’s office the next day to hear their punishment, but who cares. Sirius will forever have the image of Lucius Malfoy showered in milk and James will have that shared look, those incredible green eyes of Lily Evans only for himself, and just for a second, softening, smiling despite everything, as if saying _you’re an utter idiot, Potter, but that wasn’t half bad._

He doesn’t need more.

 

 

**Terrible consequences**

“You must understand, gentlemen, that I must give you an exemplary punishment.”

Dumbledore’s office. Headmasters asleep inside their portraits. A glorious phoenix in a corner, it’s eyes closed, feathers folded. Dozens of magical candles in the air. Sirius and James sitting in front of the desk, nodding.

“I cannot allow the rest of the students to believe that what you did last night is right. It would be as if I were indirectly accusing certain Slytherin students of promoting hatred between the different blood stations. And of course I would indirectly be stating that I applaud your manner of ridiculing those prejudices. You must understand,” Dumbledore looks at them with total sincerity, “I cannot act so foolishly. As Headmaster.”

James looks at Sirius. Sirius looks at him. They’re not sure if they’re being scolded or applauded.

“Therefore, and I’m sure you are both aware that I’ve organised a cinematography session in Hogsmeade for the end of year, you will have to take on a pitiful task. I will not hear protests, lamentations or objections. You’ll pay the consequences of your actions, gentlemen.”

Again, they nod. Again, they’re confused. James fears to be left without the trip. Without his opportunity to sit by Lily. In the dark.

“We’re in agreement, then. You’ll go to Hogsmeade this weekend and without any excuse, you will have to choose what film we will watch. I don’t want to hear a single complaint, is that clear?”

James smiles.

“Crystal clear, Professor.”

Sirius, who thinks he could kiss Dumbledore that second if he weren’t ugly like a wrinkled parchment, smiles.

“Clear as a summer day, sir.”

They both think that in another era, a long time ago, maybe even before Merlin, Albus Dumbledore must have been a troublemaker through and through.

 


End file.
